Terence Henry Stamp was born and lived in Canal Road, Bow, until German bombers forced his family to move to Plaistow. An icon of the 1960s, he dated the likes of Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and Jean Shrimpton. After an extremely successful early career, starring in Modesty Blaise (1966), Poor Cow (1967) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Stamp withdrew from mainstream films after his girlfriend, supermodel Jean Shrimpton, left him, and he went on a 10-year sabbatical in India. He returned home in the late 1970s to star as the evil General Zod in Superman II (1980), and in 1984, delivered what many consider his finest performance as the supergrass in Stephen Frears’ The Hit (1984). A few minor but colourful roles, topped by his performance as the transsexual Bernadette in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), have put Stamp back in the British consciousness. His role of a vengeful gangster in The Limey (1999) was created especially for him by its director.
Terence Stamp
Movies
Wanted
A young man finds out his long lost father is an assassin. When his father is murdered, the son is recruited into his father’s old organization and trained by a man named Sloan to follow in his dad’s footsteps.
Fun Facts
when he got in the cutting room and realized he had all this extra footage
Quotes
I would have liked to be James Bond.
[on death] Few people understand it and live when it comes.
[on declining to appear in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)] Actors prefer to work with actors.
A lot of newspapers say Terence Stamp is playing himself and we're as bored as he is.
A lot of people only see me as a villain.
All actors are incredibly insecure.
As a boy, I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed.
My favorite film is The Razor's Edge (1946) with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power.
[on Man of Steel (2013)] When I heard they were remaking it, or they were doing a version of it, I was kind of sad in a way. Superman (1978) was the benchmark for all of these comic book movies. There's never been anything quite as good as those Dick Donner [Richard Donner] movies. Since then, big movies have become computer generated. They've become unemotional, and so I was sad. I thought it would be diluted, in other words.
[on Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)] He may be a great visionary, Lucas [George Lucas], and he may be great with toys and effects and stuff, but he doesn't really strike me as someone who was really interested in acting.
[on his former flatmate Michael Caine] Caine gave me all my early values, like making sure you were doing good stuff, waiting for the right things - then as soon as he got away he did exactly the opposite. Went from one movie to another.
[on being directed by John Schlesinger in Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)] He didn't strike me as a guy who was particularly interested in film. Plus I wasn't his first choice: he really wanted Jon Voight. He wasn't exactly hostile, but he really didn't help me. I was working on my own, really."I'll say this for Schlesinger