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James Jonathon Wilby (born 20 February 1958) is an English actor.

Wilby was born inRangoon,Burma to a corporate executive father.^[1] He was educated at Terrington Hall andSedbergh School, studied for a degree in Mathematics atGrey College, Durham, and then at theRoyal Academy of Dramatic Art.^{[citation needed]}

Wilby's first appearance on screen was in the Oxford Film Company productionPrivileged (1982) alongsideHugh Grant. He acted with Grant again in theMerchant Ivory period filmMaurice (1987), which brought him to the attention of an international audience and earned Wilby and Grant theVenice Film Festival's Best Actor award. He then starred inA Handful of Dust (1988), for which he won the Bari Film Festival Best Actor award. His further roles includedA Tale of Two Cities (1989) forGranada Television,Howards End (1992),Regeneration (1997), Ismail Merchant'sCotton Mary (1999),Gosford Park (2001), andAlain Robbe-Grillet'sC'est Gradiva qui vous appelle (2006), co-starringArielle Dombasle, which premiered at theVenice Film Festival.

On stage, Wilby starred in the 1995 revival ofJohn Osborne'sA Patriot for Me by theRoyal Shakespeare Company at theBarbican Theatre.^[2] He then appeared in a production ofHelping Harry at theJermyn Street Theatre in 2001; and in 2004 as the title character in a run ofDon Juan at theLyric Theatre. He has also starred inOn Emotion (2008) at theSoho Theatre;The Consultant (2011) by Neil Fleming and the Hydrocracker Theatre Company atTheatre503 in London; and in tours ofTerence Rattigan'sLess Than Kind (2012) andPatrick Hamilton'sGaslight (2019).^[3]

Wilby is married to Shana Louise and has four children.^[4][5]

From 1994 to 2015, Wilby ownedThe Laines, an 18th-century country house inPlumpton, East Sussex, near Lewes. It was the childhood home ofQueen Camilla.^[6]

• List of British actors
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• James Wilby atIMDb
• New York Times biographyArchived 14 August 2003 at theWayback Machine
• Hollywood.com biography

• FromThe Guardian (2002)
• FromThe Telegraph (2004)^{[dead link‍]}
• FromThe Telegraph (2005)

• 1958 births
• Living people
• 20th-century English male actors
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• Actors educated at Sedbergh School
• Alumni of Grey College, Durham
• Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• Burmese emigrants to the United Kingdom
• English male film actors
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• English male television actors
• Male actors from Yangon
• Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners
• Royal Shakespeare Company members
• Volpi Cup for Best Actor winners

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