Colin Firth

The actor finally broke free of this typecast, and put himself in line for Oscar glory in 2010, with his powerful performance in Tom Ford-directed drama, A Single Man.

His effort playing a grieving university lecturer coming to terms with the loss of his male partner was, according to one critic: "A quantum leap for Colin Firth… his most nuanced, compelling performance to date."

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!"