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John Rhys-Davies
Rhys-Davies in 2018
Born	(1944-05-05) 5 May 1944 (age 80) Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Alma mater	University of East Anglia
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1964–present
Spouse	Suzanne Wilkinson ​ ​(m. 1966; sep. 1985)​
Partner	Lisa Manning (2004–present)
Children	3
Signature

John Rhys-Davies (born 5 May 1944) is a Welsh actor known for portraying Sallah in the Indiana Jones franchise and Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, with one win, and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Rhys-Davies is also known for his performances in the films Sahara (1983), The Living Daylights (1987), Glory Daze (1995), The Medallion (2003) and One Night with the King (2006). He is also known for his extensive voice work including Cats Don't Dance (1997), Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists (2000), SpongeBob SquarePants (2000–2002), and TripTank (2015–2016).

He also gained acclaim for his television roles as Macro in I, Claudius (1976), Vasco Rodrigues in Shōgun (1980), and Michael Malone in The Untouchables (1993). From 1995 to 1997, he portrayed Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders.

Early life

John Rhys-Davies was born in Salisbury on 5 May 1944, the son of Welsh parents. His mother, Phyllis Jones, was a nurse, while his father, Rhys Davies, was a mechanical engineer and colonial officer.

Due to his father's work as a colonial police officer, he was raised in Tanganyika (today part of Tanzania) before his family moved to the Welsh town of Ammanford. While in Tanganyika, his family lived in places such as Dar es Salaam, Kongwa, Moshi, and Mwanza. He was educated at independent Truro School in Cornwall and then at the University of East Anglia, where he was one of the first 105 students admitted and became a co-founder of its drama club. After a stint teaching at a secondary school in Watton, Norfolk, he won a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Career

Rhys-Davies appeared sporadically on UK television in the early 1970s, including his role as the gangster "Laughing Spam Fritter" opposite Adam Faith in Budgie. Later he played Praetorian officer Naevius Sutorius Macro in I, Claudius. He then began to appear more frequently, and not just in the UK, with roles as a Portuguese navigator Rodrigues in the 1980 television miniseries Shogun, based on the novel by James Clavell.

In 1989, he played Marvel Comics character Kingpin in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk. Rhys-Davies also starred in another Clavell adaption, Noble House, set in Hong Kong, in which he plays Ian Dunross' corporate enemy, Quillan Gornt. He has since appeared in numerous television shows and miniseries, including Agent Michael Malone in the 1993 remake of the 1950s television series The Untouchables as well as a leading role in the television series Sliders as Professor Maximillian Arturo from 1995 to 1997.

He also appeared in Reilly, Ace of Spies in 1983, made several appearances in Star Trek: Voyager as a holodeck version of Leonardo da Vinci, starred as an ally of James Bond in The Living Daylights, and appeared in the film One Night with the King. Davies has played the character Porthos in two separate projects; a two-part episode of The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, and the Hallmark Channel film La Femme Musketeer. He appears in the full motion video cut scenes of computer games including Ripper (as Vigo Haman) (1996), Dune 2000 (as Noree Moneo) (1998), and the Wing Commander series (as James Taggart, doubling as the voice of Thrakhath nar Kiranka in the third game of the series).

In 2004, he narrated The Privileged Planet, a documentary that makes the case for intelligent design. He also provided narration in the MTV series Wildboyz around this time. In 2013, he appeared in the family history programme Coming Home, in which he discovered information about his grandfather's life in the Carmarthenshire coal mines.

In 2014, he joined the cast of the television show Metal Hurlant Chronicles to play Holgarth, an immortal alchemist.

In 2015, he had a role in the single-player campaign of the PC game Star Citizen alongside Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman. The work consisted of full body motion capture, including facial expressions and his voice; it was recorded primarily at the Imaginarium studios in the UK.

Indiana Jones movies

Rhys-Davies played Sallah in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark. He reprised the role of Sallah in two subsequent Indiana Jones films.

The Lord of the Rings movies

Rhys-Davies appeared as the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The cinematography of the films was aided in that Rhys-Davies is tall – 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m), compared to the actors playing hobbits at around 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m). Therefore, although his character was supposed to be short, he was properly in proportion compared to the hobbit actors. Had he been of more similar height, shots of the entire fellowship would have required three camera passes rather than two.

Rhys-Davies is the only one of the nine Fellowship of the Ring actors who did not receive a tattoo of the word "nine" written in the Tengwar script; his stunt double, Brett Beattie, was offered the tattoo instead as Rhys-Davies was disinclined to get one himself and Beattie had spent so much time as his double that he almost received co-credit.

Rhys-Davies suffered severe reactions to the prosthetics used during filming, and his eyes sometimes swelled shut. When asked whether he would consider returning to the role for the film version of The Hobbit, he said, "I have already completely ruled it out. There's a sentimental part of me that would love to be involved again. Really I am not sure my face can take that sort of punishment any more." He added that this time around "hey've got a different set of problems ... because you've got 13 dwarves, a whole band of them ... You're trying to represent a whole race ... You're trying to do for dwarves what The Lord of the Rings did for hobbits." He offered help as a dwarf advisor in 2011, but ruled out returning as Gimli in The Hobbit because of the punishing makeup required.

Voice work

In addition to voicing the Ent Treebeard in Lord of the Rings, Rhys-Davies has lent his distinctive voice to many video games and animated television series, including the role of Hades in Justice League, the original voice of Man Ray in SpongeBob SquarePants (until both roles were recast with Bob Joles), and numerous times in Gargoyles (1994–1996), as the character Macbeth. He also lent his vocal talents to the games Freelancer (as Richard Winston Tobias) and Lords of Everquest (both in 2003) and the game Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness, which was released with his narration on a CD-ROM version in 1995. He also had a voice role on Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance as the character Jherek, and narrated a documentary called The Glory of Macedonia. Next Generation magazine gave its Dune 2000 review 'an automatic one-star deduction for featuring John "Multimedia Whore" Rhys-Davies in the FMV.'

John Rhys-Davies' voice can be heard on the 2009 documentary Reclaiming The Blade. In the narration, Rhys-Davies explores swords, historical European swordsmanship and fight choreography on film, a topic very familiar to him from his experiences in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where his character wielded an axe in many scenes.

In 2004, he was the unknowing subject of an internet prank that spread false rumours in several mainstream media sources that he was scheduled to play the role of General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III.

Rhys-Davies is the narrator of The Truth & Life Dramatized audio New Testament Bible, a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatised audiobook version of the New Testament which uses the Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition translation. In 2011, he presented KJB: The Book That Changed The World, which features him reading diverse snippets from the King James Version.

John Rhys-Davies’ voice work also includes voice-over work with Breathe Bible.

In 2016, he provided spoken words for Voices of Fire, the sixth album by a cappella power metal band van Canto.

A resident of the Isle of Man since 1988, John Rhys-Davies provides the introductory voice-over to the Island's Castle Rushen, one of the best-preserved medieval fortresses in the British Isles. In 2018, he lent his voice to the Isle of Man's tourism commercial.

Rhys-Davies voice was recorded for some of the callouts in the 1993 Williams SuperPin Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure.

In the 2023 video game The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, he reprises the role of Gimli and narrates the opening scene.

Personal life

Relationships

Rhys-Davies married Suzanne Wilkinson in December 1966, and they had two sons together. Although they legally separated in 1985, they remained married until her death from Alzheimer's disease in 2010. They remained friends, and he took care of her in her final years.

In 2004, Rhys-Davies began dating Lisa Manning. They have a daughter together, and split their time between homes in the New Zealand region of Waikato and on the Isle of Man.

Religious views

While he identifies as irreligious, he holds Christianity in high regard and has stated that "Christian civilisation has made the world a better place than it ever was."

In February 2020, Rhys-Davies stated, "All the things that we value, the right of free speech, the right of the individual conscience, these evolved in first and second century Roman Christendom, where the individual Christian said, 'I have a right to believe, what I believe and not what the Emperor tells me.' From that our whole idea of democracy and the equality that we have has developed. We owe Christianity the greatest debt of thanks that a generation can ever have, and to slight it and to dismiss it as being irrelevant is the detritus of rather ill-read minds, I think."

Political views

Rhys-Davies is not a member of any political party. He was a radical leftist as a university student in the 1960s, but changed his views when he went to heckle Margaret Thatcher, who he said "shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that decided ought for once to shut up and listen".

In 2004, Rhys-Davies said in an interview with World magazine: "There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well. By 2020, 50% of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent." In an interview with the conservative journal National Review, he said that he is opposed to Islamic extremism because he believes that it violates the Western values of equality, democracy, tolerance, and the abolition of slavery.

Rhys-Davies was vocal in his support for Brexit.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Awards and nominations

Audio work

Audiobooks

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989 Buena Vista Records)
• Rescued (2006)
• Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince (2009)
• Affabel: Window of Eternity (2007 John Bevere, 2009 Bethany House)
• The Extraordinary Adventures of G. A. Henty: In the Reign of Terror (2016)
• The Trials of Saint Patrick (2017)

Podcasts

• Batman Unburied (2022, as Hugo Strange)

References

1. ^ "Hollywood actor John Rhys-Davies: 'I'm very proud of being a Welshman'". Wales Online. 23 November 2013. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
2. "John Rhys-Davis". Ntz.info. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
3. "Revisiting the Awesomely Cheesy 1989 Hulk TV Movie Featuring Daredevil" by Ivan Cohen at esquire.com
4. "TV: 'Noble House,' Four-Part Mini-Series" by John Corry at www.nytimes.com
5. "Untouchable Tom" by Eirik Knutzen, Toronto Star (24 July 1993) Retrieved from ProQuest 436862575
6. "Sliders is back after six months in limbo" by Ray Chatelin, The Province (29 Feb, 1996) Retrieved from ProQuest 267545850
7. "John Rhys-Davies Slides Into `Voyager' Guest Spot" by Ian Spelling at chicagotribune.com
8. "The Privileged Planet: John Rhys-Davies, Lad Allen: Movies & TV". Amazon.com. 29 September 2010. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
9. "BBC One – Coming Home, Series 8, John Rhys-Davies". Retrieved 5 January 2014.
10. "Exclu: de nouvelles photos de la saison 2 de "Metal Hurlant" [PHOTOS]". AlloCiné. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
11. Sykes, Tom (10 October 2015). "Star Citizen features Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill". PC Gamer. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
12. Mackintosh, Kieran. "Video Shows How Star Citizen intends to Use Motion Capture". Load the Game. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
13. "John Rhys-Davis on his fondness for Gimli, and his fans" by Peter Robb at ottawacitizen.com
14. "Movie Review; Mr. Jones' Last Raid; Harrison Ford is back for a final round as the archaeologist-adventure hero in the messy but poignant 'Dial of Destiny.'" by Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times (30 June 2023) Retrieved from ProQuest 2831149233
15. "John Rhys-Davies celebrity". Mooviees.com. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
16. Fellowship of the Rings Extended Edition DVD
17. Grebey, James (16 June 2021). "Lord of the Rings' uncredited Gimli double finally tells his tale". Polygon. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
18. O'Hara, Helen (30 October 2009). "Exclusive: Rhys-Davies On The Hobbit". Empire. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
19. "John nRhys-Davies offers help as 'dwarf advisor'". Stuff/Fairfax. 8 April 2011.
20. "Dune 2000 (PC)". Next Generation. No. 48. Imagine Media. December 1998. p. 134. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
21. "John Rhys-Davies Signs on as Narrator". Reclaiming the Blade. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
22. "John Rhys-Davies in Star Wars Episode III: A Grievous Media Hoax". The Rubber Chicken. Archived from the original on 6 August 2009. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
23. John Rhys-Davies, Narrator BreatheBible.com Retrieved 19 September 2017.
24. "Van Canto: Audio Samples Of Entire 'Voices Of Fire' Album". Blabbermouth.net. 8 March 2016. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
25. "Internet Pinball Machine Database: Williams 'Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure'". Ipdb.org.
26. ^ "The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™ - Opening Cinematic". YouTube. 17 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
27. ^ "Gimli actor to reprise role for The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria". Eurogamer.net. 17 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
28. ^ Ben Sledge (24 October 2023). "Return To Moria's Old Man Gimli Is The Best Kind Of Fan Service". TheGamer. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
29. Mainwaring, Rachel (20 June 2009). "John Rhys-Davies tells of his family's Alzheimer's agony". Walesonline.co.uk.
30. "Lord of the Rings star John Rhys-Davies says New Zealand show Fresh Eggs is a hoot". Thisnzlife.co.nz. 3 March 2019.
31. "Lord of the Rings star wants EU vote". Bbc.co.uk. 29 January 2016.
32. Law, Jeannie (4 February 2020). "Hollywood actor John Rhys-Davies says Christianity's not irrelevant, has made the world better". Christian Post. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
33. Arnold, Lori (13 February 2020). "Lord of the Rings Star Says the World Owes Christianity 'the Greatest Debt of Thanks'". ChristianHeadlines.com. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
34. ^ Leigh, Andrew. "No Sean Penn". National Review. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
35. Ballinger, Lucy (18 January 2004). "Welsh star in race row". Wales on Sunday. Archived from the original on 21 May 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
36. ^ "John Rhys-Davies on Gimli, Brexit and rural hell". RNZ National. 15 February 2019.
37. ^ "John Rhys Davies (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 1 October 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
38. "Review: 'Time Lapse' an unsettling trip to the future". Los Angeles Times. 14 May 2015. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
39. Beyond the Mask – Official Website, January 2015.
40. "The King's Fool". BFI Film Forever. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 29 September 2014. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
41. "Marjorie and the Preacherman (1987) | BFI". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 1 June 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2014.

External links

• John Rhys-Davies at IMDb
• Article about controversial statements 18 January 2004.
• Andrew Leigh, "No Sean Penn". National Review. 5 March 2004.

• Wales
• Cornwall

• 1944 births
• Living people
• Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• Alumni of the University of East Anglia
• Audiobook narrators
• Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners
• People educated at Truro School
• People from Ammanford
• Male actors from Carmarthenshire
• Male actors from Salisbury
• People from Watton, Norfolk
• Welsh male film actors
• Welsh male stage actors
• Welsh male television actors
• Welsh male video game actors
• Welsh male voice actors
• 20th-century Welsh male actors
• 21st-century Welsh male actors
• Actors from Breckland District