Biography for
Richard Briers More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

14 January 1934, Merton, Surrey, England, UK

Birth Name

Richard David Briers

Nickname

Dickie

Height

5' 10" (1.78 m)

Spouse

Ann Davies

(1958 - present) 2 children

Trivia

Father of Lucy Briers.

A second cousin of the late Terry-Thomas.

He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1989 Queen's Honours List for his services to drama.

Grew up in a flat above a cinema.

He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.

He attended RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) between 1954-1956 and is a member of their Council.

He was nominated for Broadway's 1998 Tony Award as best actor in a play for his performance of Eugène Ionesco's in "The Chairs.".

Patron of the Net Curtains Theatre Company.

Personal Quotes

People still see me in "Good Neighbors" (1975) repeats. I was 25 years younger then. Now I'm an old git with white hair.

I'm rather low-brow in my film tastes: I love Superman (1978) and Jack Nicholson. Jack's very theatrical and doesn't give a damn how much he overplays, he's an extraordinary performer. In a way one learns from him, but he's so brave, he just does it. He doesn't mumble, he gives a performance.

I was trained as an actor and was taught voice projection and diction, but the fashion nowadays is to speak badly and make terrible noises from the back of your throat.

I don't watch very much on TV, partly because I'm old. I want very little action. I'm one of those awfully boring people who likes David Attenborough and the news.

They simply don't write funny stuff any more. A lot of it now is depressing. Or violent. Or both.

On being awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) I'm absolutely delighted..It's more than 12 years ago that I picked up the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) so to get this is marvellous.

Ronnie [Ronnie Barker] took his comedy very seriously, and he also proved in "Porridge" (1974) that he was a brilliant actor. To me, it was the best thing he ever did. The wonderful thing about actors is that they just go on. Ronnie's work will go on, especially "Porridge", which I don't think will be topped for many, many years to come.

I'm pleased to tell you I belong to a rather elite club with a dwindling membership: I'm one of the few people in Britain who doesn't have a mobile phone. I don't possess one because I'm anti-progress and very reactionary. I'm also 75, bad-tempered and I don't want to talk to anyone that much.

I am irrevocably and unashamedly old-fashioned. I subscribe to The Oldie magazine - written expressly for the grumpy elderly - and I relish a good whinge.

Do I need or desire an iPod? Of course not! I'm afraid I won't live long enough to find time to listen to the 10,000 tunes you're supposed to be able to store on them.

I make no apologies that my home - in which my wife, Ann, and I have lived for 42 years and raised our two children - is a shrine to a slower-paced era, when household goods were made to last and no one with a scintilla of common sense threw anything away if it still worked.

Of course, I know that young people idle away hours chatting to their chums on these newfangled social networking sites. But at my age, alas, so many of my dearest friends are dead. Those who soldier on are mostly actors. Having spent a lifetime in a very rowdy profession, like me they value tranquility and have no wish to share the minutiae of their everyday lives with hundreds of new 'friends' via the internet. So we confine our socialising to the occasional leisurely lunch and that does us all very nicely.

If my agent has a job for me and I happen to be out, he phones me later when I'm back at home. If he doesn't want me, the phone remains silent. We have, for the past 50-odd years, always found this to be a perfectly satisfactory arrangement.