Career
Higgins started to play in school theatre in England. After graduation, he studied at the school of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company. In 1967 he became a professional stage actor. He received positive reviews for his Romeo in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at the Birmingham Repertory. He also worked onstage in Coventry and at the Chichester Festival in Chichester. One of his first television appearances was a pivotal role in a 1968 episode of the TV series Journey to the Unknown with Janice Rule. Another television appearance was in The Strange Report (1969), with Anthony Quayle.
Higgins' first successes in cinema were: A Walk with Love and Death by John Huston with Angelica Huston (1969), Something for Everyone (1970) with Michael York and Angela Lansbury, Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), with Christopher Lee, and a cult film Vampire Circus (1972), which was banned in Britain for a time for its hint of bestiality. In all films of his early career, until 1975, Higgins was credited as Anthony Corlan, due to a union conflict of his name with another actor with a similar name. Higgins showed himself to be a serious actor in Flavia, la Monaca Musulmana (1974). This was followed by a period of television and plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and other British theatre productions. In 1976, he played a supporting role in a popular British television series, Hadleigh. In 1977 he played the lead role in a BBC series The Eagle of the Ninth, based on Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 book. In 1979, he played the supporting part of Gobler in the feature film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Harrison Ford and directed by Steven Spielberg. Higgins won Best Actor of 1979 from Time Out magazine for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company that year.
Higgins played the role of Stephan in the American film production of Quartet opposite French actress Isabelle Adjani in 1981. In the same year the British director Peter Greenaway chose Higgins for the leading role in his breakthrough film The Draughtsman's Contract. In 1985 Higgins appeared as the cuckolded husband in Nagisa Oshima's Max, Mon Amour with Charlotte Rampling. In 1985, he acted opposite Sting in The Bride, a version of Bride of Frankenstein. In the 1980s, Higgins appeared in supporting roles in many television series such as Lace, Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story with Armand Assante and Reilly, Ace of Spies with Sam Neill. He went to Australia to play the lead as Sir Laurence Olivier in an Australian made-for-television film, Darlings of the Gods, about the time spent in Australia by Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh.
In 1991, he carried the lead role as Johann Strauss I, in the Austrian produced, made-for-television series, The Strauss Dynasty, which was filmed in Austria with many well-known actors and aired internationally.
Higgins has played both Sherlock Holmes and Holmes' enemy Professor Moriarty, in two different decades of his career. He was the villain in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) and the consulting detective himself in Sherlock Holmes Returns (1993). In 1993, the film Sweet Killing, a dark comedy murder story set in North America released with Higgins in the lead part.
At the end of the decade and the beginning of the new millennium, he appeared in some British television series, and in 2000, he wrote and directed his own film, "Blood Count". He commissioned distinguished jazz trumpeter, Guy Barker, to compose its soundtrack.
In 2005, Higgins acted in the film Chromophobia with Ralph Fiennes and Penélope Cruz.
He played General Jacques Francois Dugommier, in 2007, in the British television series, Heroes and Villains: Napoleon. In 2009, he acted in a British-produced television episode of Lewis, Law and Order: UK and in Marple: The Secret of Chimneys (scheduled to air in 2010).
Higgins is also a musician; he plays the flugelhorn.
Read more about this topic: Anthony Higgins (actor)
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