Created by Emily Brontë in her only novel Wuthering Heights, published in 1847, Heathcliff is a classic Byronic hero — dark, brooding, mysterious, cynical, and violent. He’s “romantic” in the literary sense more than the loving sense, and his relationship with Catherine Earnshaw, with whom he’s raised as a child, is not merely a romance but a symbiotic spiritual connection that defies understanding. Brontë’s more nuanced characterization of Heathcliff is unfortunately hard to translate onscreen, and typically Heathcliff in movies and TV is reduced to Cathy’s spurned lover.
He goes through a transformation, starting as a wild, sensitive youth, then going away and returning years later looking like a gentleman but with his heart hard and cruel. In better films and TV, this is indicated through costume, if not acting. The story has been adapted for movies and TV a ton, though the novel is often chopped up and reduced down to some kind of weird love story. Let’s take a look at all the fellas who’ve portrayed this odd character onscreen!
Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939)
Richard Todd in Wuthering Heights (1953)
Richard Burton in Wuthering Heights (1958)
Keith Michell in Wuthering Heights (1962)
Ian McShane in Wuthering Heights (1967)
Terry Jones in “The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights,” season 2, episode 2, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1970)
Timothy Dalton in Wuthering Heights (1970)
Ken Hutchison in Wuthering Heights (1978)
Ralph Fiennes in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1992)
Robert Cavanah in Wuthering Heights (1998)
Tom Hardy in Wuthering Heights (2009)
James Howson in Wuthering Heights (2011)
Paul Eryk Atlas in Wuthering Heights (2018)
Bryan Ferriter in Wuthering Heights (2022)
Who’s your favorite Heathcliff?
Terry Jones, no question.
absolutely.
My favorite, hands down! :)
“Oh, Catherine!” “Oh, Heathcliff!” “Oh, oh, Catherine!”
Indubitably.
I hate this story, it’s so depressing… but Ralph nailed it. As usual.
The Semaphore Verdion. Absolutes the best. Plus what a relief from all the dreary tragic drama. LOL.
What I never quite feel with most WHs is how YOUNG these people were; I think Cathy and Heathcliff are still teenagers when she dies. (Is that one reason they go to such emotional extremes?) I was really looking forward to the 2011 version, but while those leads looked quite young, they also seemed pretty inexperienced: no real passion conveyed. Nice, dank Gothic atmosphere, though.
Yep, the timeline only works out if they’re all teenagers (my first link at the top has a great family tree that shows the dates). Written by a teenager so, there ya go!
Have you done a A Man-ick Monday on Edward Rochester, for Snark Week, yet? He was a typical Byronic “Hero” in the vein of Heathcliff! Except he locked his Creole Wife in an attic, for years.
Wait for it…
Good category! Can I add all the versions of Valmont from “Dangerous Liaisons?”
The 1998 version does have a young Matthew McFadyen going for it.
It’s quite possible the 1953 Richard Todd version was never actually filmed. The BBC was still broadcasting drama live, without even recording it around that time, I believe.
And of course Python are the best, by miles. Though the Batley Townswomen’s Guild brought a certain something extra to their performances. (Jones, Palin, Cleese et al in dresses, clobbering each other with handbags in the mud.)
OMG–Ralph Fiennes IS Heathcliff! That version came out on TV in the states when I was in high school…and…and… SIGH! I later read the book and LOVED it! Poor me. That movie was my introduction to Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Janet McTeer and the composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. All whose work I came to love as an adult and only then discovered that they’d worked on this production. Despite loving Fiennes-Binoche version AND the novel, I really haven’t sought out the other productions, even though I admire most of the actors listed above who played Heathcliff. I think I just want Ralph Fiennes to be Heathcliff in my head.
That said, somehow (and I can’t remember how), I learned of and watched a modern adaptation of the story called “Wuthering High”–which is, yes, the story of two California high school students. James Caan is the father. This movie is so bizarre (and cheap). It’s a shame because the two young leads put a lot of passion on the screen, and it seems that they had raw talent; and James Caan is a good actor in general, albeit miscast in that production. Anyway, it’s not a Frock Flick, but if you’re a WH fan, then it’s worth checking out as a curiosity. (I just looked it up on IMDB and saw that it was subsequently retitled “The Wrong Boyfriend”….so…. do with that what you will.)
Back to the featured photos and projects in this post…the two final productions look absolutely egregious, and I remember them being mocked before in other posts. That last pic….Lord, that guy looks like he wandered onto the moors from a terrible vampire movie!!! This was a fun post!! All that’s to say: Ralph Fiennes and Heathcliff forever!! Oh, and I think you’re right…it’s SO HARD to get what comes thru in Bronte’s amazing novel into a film adaptation…