Mr. Bean

Mr.Bean Biography,Rowan Atkinson

introduces
Mini Biography:
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on the 6th January, 1955, in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, to Ella May and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm where he grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering. During that time, he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he wrote and performed comedy revues.
Later, he co-wrote and appeared in "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (1979), which was a huge success and spawned several best-selling books. It won an International Emmy Award and the British Academy Award for "Best Light Entertainment Programme of 1980." He won the "British Academy Award" and was named "BBC Personality of the Year" for his performing on "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (1979).

Atkinson also appeared in several movies, including Dead on Time (1983), Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976) (TV) (aka "Monty Python Meets Beyond the Fringe"), Never Say Never Again (1983), and The Tall Guy (1989). He played "Mr. Bean" in the TV series, "Mr. Bean" (1990) but, apart from that and "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (1979), he also appeared in several other series like "The Black Adder" (1982) and "Funny Business" (1992), etc.

Atkinson enjoys nothing better than fast cars. He has been married to Sunetra Sastry since 1990, and they have two children, named Benjamin and Lily.
Early life and education

Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers were Paul, who died as an infant, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert. Atkinson was brought up Anglican,and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college his father matriculated at in 1935, which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006. First achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976, while at Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.

Personal life:

Marriage and children:
Atkinson first met Sunetra Sastry in the 1980s, who was working as a make-up artist with the BBC.[17] Sastry is of mixed descent, being the daughter of an Indian father and a British mother.[18] The couple married at the Russian Tea Room in New York City in 1990. They have two children and live in Oundle, Northamptonshire as well as Ipsden, Oxfordshire and Highbury, London.[citation needed] In October 2010, his Blackadder co-star Stephen Fry confessed on The Rob Brydon Show that he had contemplated asking Sastry out (she was a make-up artist on the series), but discovered she was going on a date with Atkinson and kept quiet. Fry was best man at Atkinson's wedding in 1990. Atkinson was formerly in a relationship with actress Leslie Ash.[19]
Politics:
In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry, and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which they felt would give overwhelming power to religious groups to impose censorship on the arts.[20]
In 2009, he criticised homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.[21]

Cars:
With an estimated wealth of £100 million, Atkinson is able to indulge his passion for cars that began with driving his mother's Morris Minor around the family farm. He has written for the British magazines Car, Octane, Evo, and "SuperClassics", a short-lived UK magazine, in which he reviewed the McLaren F1 in 1995.

Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly 'Class 1') lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material.

A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.

Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns a McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident in Cabus, near Garstang, Lancashire with an Austin Metro. He also owns a Honda NSX. Other cars he owns include an Audi A8, and a Honda Civic Hybrid.

The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back.

 A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and chétif.

One car Atkinson has said he will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people—and I wish them no ill—are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one.

He appeared in Episode 4, Season 17 of Top Gear as the guest of "Star in a reasonably priced car" section, where he drove the Kia Cee'd on the test track in 1"42.2, knocking off John Bishop (1"42.8) to become new leader of the board.
Personal Quotes:
People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I'll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn't the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.

[commenting in 2004 on Britain's proposed Racial and Religious Hatred Bill] To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

Mr. Bean is essentially a child trapped in the body of a man. All cultures identify with children in a similar way, so he has this bizarre global outreach. And 10-year-old boys from different cultures have more in common than 30-year-olds. As we grow up, we acquire this sensibility that divides us.

I remember looking up Johnny English (2003) in a film guide and it said 'intermittently hilarious' - quite a good description of five good jokes and a lot of longueurs. I find it frustrating that, apart from Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), I have yet to be involved in a film of which I am totally proud.

The casual ease which some people move from finding something offensive to wishing to declare it criminal - and are then able to find factions within government to aid their ambitions - is truly depressing.

[On being overwhelmed by fans at a Toronto shopping mall] It's a bit disconcerting being treated like Madonna.

Atkinson in 2007
Birth name : - Rowan Sebastian Atkinson
Born : - 6 January 1955 (age 56)
Consett, County Durham, England, United Kingdom
Nickname : - Row
Height : - 5' 11" (1.80 m)
Medium : - Stand-up, television, film
Years active : - 1978–present
Genres : - Physical comedy, Satire, Black comedy
Influences : - Peter Sellers, Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati[1]
Influenced : - Steve Pemberton, David Walliams, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson
Spouse : - Sunetra Sastry (m. 5 February, 1990–present), 2 children
Notable : - Not the Nine O'Clock News
works and roles: - Blackadder , Mr. Bean, the Thin Blue Line