01.01.1958 (66 years)
David Parfitt (born 8 July 1958) is an English film producer, actor, and co-founder of Trademark Films. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1998 for Shakespeare in Love.Parfitt was born in Sunderland and educated at the Barbara Speake Stage School, an independent school in London. He began his stage career with the Sunderland Empire Theatre Society in 1969 and later gained work on television, including playing Peter Harrison in the sitcoms ...And Mother Makes Three and its sequel ...And Mother Makes Five and appearing in Love in a Cold Climate (1980). On radio, he voiced the original Tim Beecham, an old friend of Nigel Pargetter (and a 'Hooray Henry' known for persistently failing his law exams) in the BBC Radio 4 serial The Archers. Parfitt gave up acting in the late 1980s to concentrate on production, and has worked as an independent film producer since then. He was Chairman of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) from 2008 to 2010, and has produced and associate-produced many British films, including Henry V (1989), Peter's Friends, Swan Song (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), The Madness of King George, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Twelfth Night (1996), The Wings of the Dove (1997), Shakespeare in Love, Gangs of New York (Production Consultant), I Capture the Castle, Chasing Liberty, A Bunch of Amateurs and My Week with Marilyn (2011). He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Sunderland in 1999. He lives in Brixton with his wife Liz and their three sons, Bill, Thomas and Max.