Biography
Welsh actor Timothy Dalton has excelled in roles calling for both panache and psychological complexity. His stage training has included stints at the National Youth Theatre, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and the star-making Birmingham Repertory. Dalton's extensive work in the classics with the Royal Shakespeare Company led to his being cast as King Philip of France in the film
The Lion in Winter (1968). In 1971, Dalton appeared in Mary, Queen of Scots, simultaneously launching a lengthy romantic involvement with that film's star,
Vanessa Redgrave. When
Roger Moore quit the
James Bond film series in 1986, it looked for a while as though his successor would be television star
Pierce Brosnan; instead, the
Bond producers made the eleventh-hour decision to cast Dalton as secret agent 007 in
The Living Daylights. Though dashing in a tuxedo and more than willing to perform his own stunts, Dalton was more effectively felt in the role of the dastardly movie swashbuckler-cum-Nazi spy in the breezy sci-fi film
The Rocketeer (1991). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide