Colin Firth
"I've sometimes wanted to play the village pervert in something and nobody wants me to do that," says actor Colin Firth, whose 1995 turn as Mr Darcy in the BBC's Pride And Prejudice made him a reluctant idol for millions of women.
While the series was melting hearts across the UK, Colin fled to Tunisia to shoot the Oscar-winning film The English Patient. "When I came back to London my hair... was extremely short and fair so I wasn't recognised," he says. "I remember sitting in a restaurant next to people talking about Mr Darcy."
Actually, it seemed the only person not talking about Colin was the press-shy actor himself. Six years later he was to play Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary, and once again his name was on everyone's lips.
Colin Firth was born on September 10, 1960, and spent his early days in Nigeria, where his parents David and Shirley were both teachers. "Flamboyance on one side and classically English reserve on the other," is how he describes their influence. The family moved back to England but relocated to America before Colin was a teenager. His childhood proved taxing as he never quite fitted in, even when the Firth brood once again crossed the Atlantic and settled in England. A determined Colin, who'd announced his desire to be an actor at 14, enrolled at drama school, making do on a tight budget and living in a dilapidated London bedsit.
He made his West End debut in Another Country during his last year at the Drama Centre and was cast in the film adaptation soon after. TV and stage roles, including a high-profile part in The Secret Garden, followed, as did critical accolades and unending devotion from legions of female fans. But to their dismay, Colin fell for American actress Meg Tilly and was off the market.
The two met on the set of 1989's Valmont, the Milos Forman take on the famed Choderlos de Laclos novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and holed up in the Canadian backwoods for five years. "I made furniture," recalls Colin of the time he spent in the forest while raising the couple's son William. Despite his own reclusive tendencies, however, the seclusion proved too much for Colin and the lovers eventually split amicably.
Colin later took up with his Pride co-star Jennifer Ehle, but while filming Nostromo in 1996, he fell in love with Livia Giuggioli, an Italian documentary maker who author Nick Hornby describes as "joke-perfect" - she's got both a PhD and sultry looks. Colin and Livia wed on June 21, 1997, and welcomed their first son Luca in 2001 and their second, Mateo, in 2003.
"I feel much more settled and peaceful," reports Colin on marriage. Once again, however, he shies away from discussing that side of his life. "It was love at first sight or lust," he says of Livia. "She is an Italian beauty and the smartest woman on the planet. And this is as far as we're going in relation to my personal life! I'm no open book. There will never be a Colin Firth's Diary!"
Actually, it seemed the only person not talking about Colin was the press-shy actor himself. Six years later he was to play Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary, and once again his name was on everyone's lips.
Colin Firth was born on September 10, 1960, and spent his early days in Nigeria, where his parents David and Shirley were both teachers. "Flamboyance on one side and classically English reserve on the other," is how he describes their influence. The family moved back to England but relocated to America before Colin was a teenager. His childhood proved taxing as he never quite fitted in, even when the Firth brood once again crossed the Atlantic and settled in England. A determined Colin, who'd announced his desire to be an actor at 14, enrolled at drama school, making do on a tight budget and living in a dilapidated London bedsit.
He made his West End debut in Another Country during his last year at the Drama Centre and was cast in the film adaptation soon after. TV and stage roles, including a high-profile part in The Secret Garden, followed, as did critical accolades and unending devotion from legions of female fans. But to their dismay, Colin fell for American actress Meg Tilly and was off the market.
The two met on the set of 1989's Valmont, the Milos Forman take on the famed Choderlos de Laclos novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and holed up in the Canadian backwoods for five years. "I made furniture," recalls Colin of the time he spent in the forest while raising the couple's son William. Despite his own reclusive tendencies, however, the seclusion proved too much for Colin and the lovers eventually split amicably.
Colin later took up with his Pride co-star Jennifer Ehle, but while filming Nostromo in 1996, he fell in love with Livia Giuggioli, an Italian documentary maker who author Nick Hornby describes as "joke-perfect" - she's got both a PhD and sultry looks. Colin and Livia wed on June 21, 1997, and welcomed their first son Luca in 2001 and their second, Mateo, in 2003.
"I feel much more settled and peaceful," reports Colin on marriage. Once again, however, he shies away from discussing that side of his life. "It was love at first sight or lust," he says of Livia. "She is an Italian beauty and the smartest woman on the planet. And this is as far as we're going in relation to my personal life! I'm no open book. There will never be a Colin Firth's Diary!"
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