By Sura Wood
Sir Derek Jacobi is the least pretentious
knight you're likely to encounter.
Although
he has a reputation as one of the great actors of the
English
stage, he's best known stateside as the major player in I,
Claudius,
the popular PBS series. Claudius, the slouching,
limping, stuttering chronicler of the rise and fall of the Roman
Empire,
survived imperial intrigue, murder, and Caligula,
eventually
becoming emperor himself. Playing the fool had its
rewards:
The role made Jacobi an "overnight sensation" and
opened
the magic door to the large screen. He enjoys a mutual
admiration
society with Kenneth Branagh, who directed him in
Dead
Again and cast him as another Claudius -- Hamlet's
murderous
uncle -- in Branagh's four-hour film adaptation of the
play.
Jacobi invested the character with a humanity so palpable
one
could feel his body temperature.
Jacobi will be honored Monday, Oct. 5, in a special tribute at the
Mill
Valley Film Festival. His Mill Valley appearance coincides
with a
promotional tour for his latest film, Love Is the Devil, which
is a
portrait of the notorious painter Francis Bacon and his
tempestuous
S/M relationship with his working-class lover. As
with
some creative people, Bacon's talent was for art, not life.
"He
was a masochist in his sexual being and a sadist in his
emotional relationships," says Jacobi.
Early in his career, Jacobi was anointed the next John Gielgud --
largely
because of his most distinctive attribute, his expressive,
clear,
slightly ethereal voice. However, Richard Burton once took
the
young Jacobi aside after seeing him in a student production of
Hamlet
and told him that his mellifluous voice would put audiences
to sleep unless he "roughened it up." Thanks a lot, Dick.
Jacobi has benefited from the fact that the British entertainment
industry
embraces a wide range of physical types. The cult of
beauty
that tyrannizes American casting is mercifully absent in
Britain, where one doesn't have to be an Adonis to get parts.
"In
American movies, the leads are always lookers. It would be nice
if there were more room for the uglies and the oldies," he says.
Above all, Jacobi is a creature of the stage, and he evinces an
affinity
for his fellow actors. "I admire actors' nerve, their courage,
their skill, and the fact that they have to live with constant
rejection, criticism, and self-doubt." (A pregnant pause.)
"Fortunately, it's also a profession where you don't have to
retire."