Oliver Robert Ford Davies OBE (born 12 August 1939) is an English actor, theatre historian, director, playwright, and writer. He is best known for his extensive theatre work, and to a broader audience for his role as Sio Bibble in Star Wars Episodes I to III. He is also known for his role as Maester Cressen in HBO series Game of Thrones.
Oliver Robert Ford Davies[1][a] was born in Ealing, Middlesex, England on 12 August 1939.[3] His father was a teacher.[4]
He attended the King's School, Canterbury.[citation needed] Aged 11, he performed in a school play, Richard of Bordeaux, and found that he .mw-parser-output .inline-quote{quotes:none}.mw-parser-output .inline-quote-italic{font-family:inherit;font-style:italic}.mw-parser-output .inline-quote-marks{quotes:"\"""\""}liked being someone else.[4] In 1956 he joined the eminent Ealing amateur company Questors.[5]
He won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he read history and became president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. After obtaining his DPhil,[6] he did a postgraduate teaching qualification.[4]
From 1964[4] Davies worked as a history lecturer at the University of Edinburgh before taking up acting professionally in 1967,[4] "to give acting a go". Among his students was future foreign secretary of the UK Robin Cook.[7]
In 1959, as a member of the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club, Davies appeared in his first Stratford performance in the Memorial Theatre's open-air production of Bartholomew Fair.[8][9]
His first professional appearances were, at the age of 27, in the 1967 season at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre – which at that time included Michael Gambon, Brian Cox, Timothy Dalton, and Anna Calder-Marshall.[4] Short Seasons at the Mermaid, London, the Oxford Playhouse and the Cambridge Arts Theatre followed.[10] Davies' long and prolific association with the Royal Shakespeare Company started in 1975, when director Terry Hands cast him as Mountjoy in Henry V.[11][12]
His big breakthrough in theatre came in 1990, when he was given the lead role in David Hare's Racing Demon at the National Theatre in London.[4]
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