Portrait of Richard III of England, painted by Barthel ii, after a lost original, 1520s, Society of Antiquaries London
Richard III was King of England from 1483-85. The younger brother of Edward IV, he’s best known for (probably) being responsible for the disappearance and death of the “princes in the tower.” He supported his brother in his kingship, but when Edward died, instead of shepherding his nephew to the throne, he declared his deceased brother’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville bigamous, disinherited his brother’s son, and took the throne for himself. He was married to Anne Neville, who died mid-reign. Henry Tudor (the future VII) challenged Richard for the throne, defeating and killing him at the Battle of Bosworth. Richard’s body was famously found “under a carpark” a few years ago, and DNA testing demonstrated that it really was him! Which was pretty darn fabulous for this Exhume All the Bodies girl.
There’s a few performances as Richard that I can’t find photos of:
- William V. Ranous in Richard III (1908)
- William Windom in Masterpiece Playhouse: “Richard III” (1950)
- Péter Haumann in III. Richárd (1973)
- Colin Starkey in Second Verdict: “Who Killed the Princes in the Tower?” (1976)
- Ramaz Chkhikvadze in Richard III (1980)
- Andrew Jarvis in The Wars of the Roses (1989)
- Paul Mohan in Historyonics: “Richard III” (2004)
For the rest, here we go!
Frank Benson in Richard III (1911)
A silent short film adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
Frederick Warde in Richard III (1912)
A silent feature adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
Rolf Leslie in Jane Shore (1915)
A silent film about one of Edward IV’s mistresses.
John Barrymore in The Show of Shows (1929)
A talking “revue” film (think like a vaudeville show), with various different short segments. This one was an excerpt from the Shakespeare play.
Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939)
A fictional take on Richard III, his ascent to power, and those pesky princes.
Lowell Gilmore in The Black Arrow (1948)
An adventure film adaptation of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel set during the Wars of the Roses.
Laurence Olivier in Richard III (1955)
THE feature film Shakespeare adaptation!
Paul Daneman in An Age of Kings (1960) & Traitor’s Gate (1962)
Age of Kings was a BBC TV Shakespeare adaptation series; all I can tell about Traitor’s is it was a TV show featuring Richard III and an “interrogator.”
Vincent Price in Tower of London (1962)
A remake of the 1939 film.
Wolfgang Kieling in König Richard III (1964)
A West German TV adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
Ian Holm in War of the Roses (1965)
A filmed version of the Royal Shakespeare Company performing all three parts of Henry VI and Richard III.
Adalberto Maria Merli in La Freccia nera (1968)
An Italian TV adaptation of The Black Arrow.
Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl (1977)
“In a play within a play in Neil Simon’s 1977 film The Goodbye Girl, Richard Dreyfuss’s character reluctantly portrays Richard as a stereotypically effeminate homosexual at the insistence of an avant-garde director,” per Wikipedia.
Ramaz Chkhikvadze in Richard III (1982)
A Soviet film? Maybe?
Ron Cook in the BBC Shakespeare: “Henry VI, Part 2,” “Henry VI, Part 3” & “The Tragedy of Richard the Third” (1983)
Yet another BBC TV Shakespeare adaptation series!
Peter Cook in The Black Adder (1983)
The famous comic TV series, in which Richard is a parody of Laurence Olivier’s depiction; Richard in this storyline is a kind, benevolent monarch, who defeats Henry Tudor at the aforementioned battle but is accidentally killed by bumbling noble Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh (Rowan Atkinson).
Ariel García Valdés in Richard III (1986)
A French adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
Ian McKellen in Richard III (1995)
A feature film adaptation of the Shakespeare play, but reset (costume/set-wise) in 1930s Germany.
Al Pacino in Looking for Richard (1996)
A “free-form exploration of the character and the play” (Wikipedia).
Aneurin Barnard in The White Queen (2013)
The Starz TV miniseries adaptation of the Philippa Fucking Gregory novel about Elizabeth Woodville.
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Hollow Crown (2016)
Yet another BBC TV Shakespeare adaptation series, but this time done gritty with semi-modernized costumes.
Harry Lloyd in The Lost King (2022)
The dramatization of the contemporary locating of Richard’s body, with the ghost of Richard III visiting discoverer/writer/producer Philippa Langley.
Jim Howick in Horrible Histories
Of course the British TV comedy/musical series had to include Richard!
Which is your favorite depiction of Richard III on screen? Okay, maybe favorite after Olivier?
olivier s is the best and costumes are sumptuous. would have gladly strutted around the court adorned in those clothes
“Oh, dear, Richard the Third”. As you’ve flagged Olivier, I’ll propose an honourable mention for Peter Sellers https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zLEMncv140s
I know you say Richard “probably” killed his nephews — but the problem there is the absence of bodies. It’s the same problem if you think Henry VII killed the princes. Neither Richard nor Henry was stupid, and if you’re a usurping or conquering king, you eliminate the heirs of the previous king. And you display their bodies so they are SEEN to be dead. If you don’t, you risk pretenders rising up against you, which is exactly what happened in Henry’s reign.
So I don’t think either Richard OR Henry killed the princes. If they had, they’d have displayed their bodies and said how tragic it was that they died of a fatal hangnail.
But as always, that leaves us with the same question: Who killed the Princes in the Tower?
Good points, but still, Occam’s razor says Richard was probably responsible. I think the real question is, WHAT HAPPENED to the Princes? We assume they were killed, but maybe they died and no bodies were displayed b/c whoever was responsible was embarrassed/afraid they’d get into trouble? Maybe they did escape? I’d love to know!
I think it more likely R3 had them quietly removed (alive) and sent to one of his Northern castles to join their various young cousins. Or to his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, in what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. In any case, Henry Tudor had better reason to have the boys murdered than Richard did: he was supposed to marry their older sister, and discovery of the boys would have cost him the throne. Annette Carson’s “The Maligned King” is a good exploration of the era’s politics and alliances.
Ian McKellen was my first introduction to the character/person (outside of a brief snippet of Steve Cumyn, playing Alec Guinness, as Richard III in the Historica Canada segment about the establishment of the Stratford Theatre Festival: https://www.historicacanada.ca/productions/minutes/stratford) so it will always be my favourite portrayal, though Olivier is of course a close second.
Interestingly although the film seems to be borrowing heavily from Nazi/fascist imagery, McKellen was actually inspired by fascism in England in the 1930s, including the fact that Edward VIII may have had Nazi sympathies.
I don’t think the 1995 Richard III is meant to be set in 1930s Germany; as I understand it from statements by the creators, it’s supposed to be an alternate 1930s Britain sliding into fascism, with McKellen’s version of Richard partially based on real 1930s British fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
Thanks for the clarification! It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
I propose an honourable mention for Peter Sellers’ riff on Olivier’s RIII:
Please delete the duplicate post! Thx :)
Ian McKellen’s Richard is my fave! His reading of the “winter of our discontent” speech is chilling & the whole film (which McKellen co-wrote & co-produced) is amazing.
I had the good fortune to meet him once ; he was adorable! :)