Early life

Izzard was born on 7 February 1962, in the Colony of Aden, the younger son of English parents. His mother, Dorothy Ella, was a midwife and nurse; his father, Harold John Izzard, was an accountant who was working in Aden with British Petroleum. A year after Izzard's birth, the family moved to Bangor, County Down, and lived there until he was five. The family then moved to Skewen, West Glamorgan, where his mother died of cancer when Izzard was six and his brother, Mark, was eight. The Izzard family name is of French Huguenot descent.

Following his mother's death, Izzard attended boarding schools such as St John's School in Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan, as well as St Bede's Prep School and Eastbourne College in East Sussex. He said that he knew he was a transgender person at the age of four, after watching another boy being forced to wear a dress by his sisters, and knew he wanted to be an actor at the age of seven.

Career

Comedy

Izzard began to toy with comedy at the University of Sheffield, with student friend Rob Ballard. After leaving his accountancy degree course, he and Ballard took their act to the streets, often in Covent Garden. After his split with Ballard, Izzard spent a great deal of the early 1980s working as a street performer in Europe and the United States. He then moved his act into the stand-up comedy venues of Britain. His first gig was at the Banana Cabaret in Balham, London.

In 1987, he made his first stage appearance at the Comedy Store in London. He refined his material throughout the 1980s, and in the early 1990s he finally began earning some measure of recognition through his improvisation, in part at his own club "Raging Bull" in Soho.

Izzard has performed stand-up in French, as well as German, Spanish, Russian and Arabic, languages which he does not speak.

Theatrical, TV and film appearances

In 1994, Izzard made his West End drama debut as the lead in the world premiere of David Mamet's The Cryptogram with Lindsay Duncan, in the production at London's Comedy Theatre. The success of that role led to his second starring role in David Beaird's black comedy 900 Oneonta. In 1995, he portrayed the title character in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II.

In 1998 Izzard appeared briefly on stage with the Monty Python team in The American Film Institute's Tribute to Monty Python (also referred to as Monty Python Live at Aspen). He walked on stage with the five surviving Pythons and he was summarily escorted off by Eric Idle and Michael Palin as he attempted to participate in a discussion about how the group got together.

Izzard portrayed comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1999 production of Julian Barry's 1971 play Lenny. In 2001, he replaced Clive Owen in Peter Nichols' 1967 play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Comedy Theatre. Izzard and Victoria Hamilton then repeated their lead roles when the show was brought to Broadway in 2003, with the Roundabout Theatre Company production. The revival received four Tony Award nominations including Best Revival of a Play, Best Leading Actor and Actress for its stars Izzard and Hamilton in their Broadway debuts, and Best Direction for Laurence Boswell. In June 2010, Izzard replaced James Spader in the role of Jack Lawson in David Mamet's play Race on Broadway.

Izzard has appeared in numerous films, starting with 1996's The Secret Agent. He has appeared as several real-life individuals, including Charlie Chaplin in The Cat's Meow, actor Gustav von Wangenheim in Shadow of the Vampire and General Erich Fellgiebel in Valkyrie. Other roles have included Mr. Kite in Across the Universe, Lussurioso in Revengers Tragedy and criminal expert Roman Nagel in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. Voice work has included the titular It in Five Children and It, Nigel in The Wild and the mouse warrior Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. He said in 2009 that he would not be reprising his role as Reepicheep and the role was ultimately played by Simon Pegg in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Izzard appeared in the 2009 BBC science fiction miniseries The Day of the Triffids based on the 1951 novel, alongside Jason Priestley, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Dougray Scott and Brian Cox.

He played Dr. Hatteras, a sceptical psychology professor, in the Showtime series United States of Tara and appeared in six episodes of the 2013-15 American psychological thriller-horror television series Hannibal as Dr. Abel Gideon.

Other

Izzard presented the medals to the athletes who had won the 800m T54 race at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Comic style

Izzard uses a stream-of-consciousness delivery that jumps between topics. As he put it in a 2004 interview with The Guardian, "It's the oral tradition. Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years". His bent towards the surreal even went so far as to produce a sitcom called Cows in 1997 for Channel 4, a live action comedy with actors dressed in cowsuits.

Activism

Izzard has engaged in campaigning work. He is especially well known as a pro-European Union campaigner, supporting the further integration of the UK into the EU. In May 2005, he appeared on the BBC's political debate show Question Time, describing himself as a "British-European", comparing this with other cultural identities such as "African-American". As part of his integration campaigning, he was one of the first people to spend a euro in London. This pan-European approach has influenced his work; he regularly performs in French and occasionally in German.

In July 2003, Izzard received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, for "pro-Europe campaigning", "his contribution to promoting modern languages and tolerance of other cultures and lifestyles", and for having "transcended national barriers" with his humour. He has also campaigned unsuccessfully against the closure of the departments of Drama and Languages, Linguistics and Translation at the University of East Anglia, although the department of Drama was later reprieved.

In 1998, Izzard was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party. He appeared in a party political broadcast for the Labour Party in the run up to the 2005 general election. He donated nearly £10,000 to the party in 2008, appeared again in a party political broadcast for the 2009 European election, and again in a 2010 election video entitled Brilliant Britain. Izzard appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011. In 2011, Izzard revealed that he had political ambitions and wanted to become an MP, Mayor, or MEP by 2020. On 25 February 2016, Izzard announced his intention to stand for the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.

On 20 July 2006, he received an honorary doctorate in Letters from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sheffield, where he spent one year on an Accounting and Financial Management course in the early 1980s. During his time at the university he established the now-defunct Alternative Productions Society in the Union of Students with the aim of promoting fringe-based arts. On 4 March 2010, he was elected as the Honorary President of the University of Sheffield Students' Union.

On 7 July 2007, Izzard was one of the presenters from the London leg of Live Earth. During an interview for the 2008 Stripped tour, he spoke about becoming more active in European politics as well as running for political office in Europe within the next decade. Izzard added a stop in New Orleans during his 2008 Stripped tour. All proceeds from the performance of 23 June 2008 were donated to Neighbourhood Housing Services of New Orleans.

In March 2014, Izzard began leading a campaign encouraging Scots not to vote for independence in the September referendum, saying that England would feel a "deep sense of loss" if Scotland were to leave the UK.

Izzard confirmed his support for Labour in the 2015 General Election, attending a party rally with fellow comedian Ben Elton and actress Sally Lindsay in April 2015. In a post-rally interview Izzard confirmed his intention to stand for election as an MP or Mayor of London in 2020.

On 27 July 2009, with only 5 weeks' training and no significant prior running experience, Izzard began seven weeks of back-to-back marathon runs (with Sundays off) across the UK to raise money for Sport Relief. He ran from London to Cardiff to Belfast to Edinburgh and back to London, carrying the flag of the country — England, Scotland, or Wales — in which he was running. In Northern Ireland he carried a self-designed green flag bearing a white dove. The blog Eddie Iz Running documented his 43 marathons in 51 days, covering at least 27 miles per day (totaling more than 1,100 miles), ending on 15 September 2009. He received a special award at BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2009 for his achievements. In March 2010, Izzard took part in the Sport Relief Mile event.

On 16 February 2016 the BBC announced that Izzard would attempt to run 27 marathons in 27 days, through South Africa for Sport Relief. The significance of the number 27 came from the number of years spent in prison by Nelson Mandela. In total Izzard would aim to run more than 700 miles, in temperatures of up to 40 °C. Izzard completed his first marathon on 23 February. He attempted such a project in South Africa in 2012, but withdrew with health concerns. He completed the marathon challenge on 20 March, at the statue of Mandela in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Because he had spent one day in hospital, he had to run two consecutive marathons on this last day. He raised more than £1.35m for Sport Relief. A BBC documentary, detailing his feat, was broadcast on 28 March.

Personal life

During his Stripped tour, Izzard said he realised he was an atheist. He said, "I was warming the material up in New York, where one night, literally on stage, I realised I didn't believe in God at all. I just didn't think there was anyone upstairs."

Izzard keeps his romantic life private, saying one of the reasons is due to the wishes of his companions not wanting to become content for his show. He dated Sarah Townsend, the director of the documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story, whom he first met while she was running a Fringe venue at the Edinburgh Festival in 1989.

Izzard supports Crystal Palace FC and became an associate director at the club on 16 July 2012.

Izzard is a supporter of the Labour Party. In September 2011, he declared his ambition to stand for the party in the future as an MP, MEP, or Mayor of London, announcing an intention to stand for the London mayoral election in 2020. When asked on comedy panel show The Last Leg why he thought he might be elected, he replied "Boris Johnson". He is also a republican, believing that Britain should have a democratically elected head of state. He has stated that he is a social democrat, not a socialist.

Izzard started to freely talk about his transvestism in venues like Edinburgh Festival as early as 1992. His stance is that cross-dressing is neither part of his performance nor a sexual fetish. He remarks in his show Unrepeatable, "Women wear what they want and so do I." According to Izzard, "Most transvestites fancy women." He identifies as "a straight transvestite or a male lesbian". He has also described himself as "a lesbian trapped in a man's body", transgender, and "a complete boy plus half girl".

Critical reception

On 18 March 2007, Izzard was listed as number 3 of the 100 Greatest British National Comedians (just behind Peter Kay at number 2 and Billy Connolly at number 1) as part of British television station Channel 4's ongoing 100 Greatest..., series. In the 2010 updated version of the list he was ranked 5th

In 2012, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sunderland.

On 20 February 2013, Izzard received the 6th Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism — an award presented at Harvard University each year by the Humanist Community at Harvard, the American Humanist Association, and the Harvard Community of Humanists, Atheists, and Agnostics.

In 2015 Izzard was chosen, by readers of The Guardian, as their 2014 public language champion. The award was announced in central London, at the Guardian and British Academy 2014 Schools Language Awards, as part of the annual Language Festival.

Discography

Date	Title
15 November 1993	Live at the Ambassadors
14 March 1994	Unrepeatable
21 October 1996	Definite Article
17 November 1997	Glorious
9 November 1998	Dress to Kill
18 November 2002	Circle
26 November 2003	Sexie
23 November 2009	Stripped
15 January 2011	Live at Madison Square Garden
18 November 2013	Force Majeure

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	The Oncoming Storm	Luthor Keeton
1996	The Secret Agent	Vladimir
1998	Velvet Goldmine	Jerry Devine
1998	The Avengers	Bailey
1999	Mystery Men	Tony P
1999	The Criminal	Peter Hume
2000	Circus	Troy
2000	Shadow of the Vampire	Gustav von Wangenheim
2001	The Cat's Meow	Charlie Chaplin
2001	All the Queen's Men	Tony Parker
2002	Revengers Tragedy	Lussurioso
2003	Alien Invasion	Brik
2004	Blueberry	Prosit
2004	Five Children and It	It	Voice only
2004	Romance & Cigarettes	Gene Vincent
2004	Ocean's Twelve	Roman Nagel
2005	The Aristocrats	Himself	Documentary
2006	The Wild	Nigel	Voice only
2006	My Super Ex-Girlfriend	Professor Bedlam
2007	Ocean's Thirteen	Roman Nagel
2007	Across the Universe	Mr. Kite
2008	The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian	Reepicheep	Voice Only
2008	Igor	Dr. Schadenfreude
2008	Valkyrie	Erich Fellgiebel
2009	Rage	Tiny Diamonds
2009	Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story	Himself	Documentary
2010	Every Day	Garrett
2011	The Other Side	Dean Bellamy
2011	Cars 2	Sir Miles Axelrod	Voice only
2011	Lost Christmas	Anthony	Also executive producer
2014	Boychoir	Drake
2015	Absolutely Anything	Headmaster
2016	Whisky Galore!	Captain Wagget	completed
2016	Rock Dog	Angus Scattergood	Post-production
2016	Carrie Pilby		Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Barf Bites Back	Himself	Television special
1994	Open Fire	Rich	Television film
1995	Aristophanes: The Gods are Laughing	Socrates	Television film
1996	Tales from the Crypt	Evans	Episode: "Confession"
1998	Rex the Runt	Melting Blob Man / Easter Island Head Aliens (voices)	2 episodes
1999	Python Night - 30 Years of Monty Python	Himself	Television special
2002	Mongrel Nation	Himself	Television documentary
2002	A Day in the Death of Joe Egg	Bri	Television film
2003	40
2006	The Secret Policeman's Ball	Himself	Television special
2007-2008	The Riches	Wayne Malloy/Doug Rich	20 episodes
2008	The Secret Policeman's Ball	Himself	Television special
2009	The Day of the Triffids	Torrence	2 episodes
2010	Eddie Izzard: Marathon Man	Himself	Television special
2010	The Simpsons	Nigel Bakerbutcher / Elizabeth II / Prince Charles (voices)	Episode: "To Surveil with Love"
2011	United States of Tara	Dr. Hattarras	8 episodes
2011	The Good Wife	James Thrush	Episode: "The Death Zone"
2012	The Secret Policeman's Ball	Himself	Television special
2012	Treasure Island	Long John Silver	Television miniseries
2012	Bullet in the Face	Johann Tannhäuser	6 episodes
2012	Mockingbird Lane	Grandpa	Television film
2013-2015	Hannibal	Dr. Abel Gideon	6 episodes
2014	Castles in the Sky	Robert Watson-Watt	Television film
2015-present	Powers	"Big Bad" Wolfe	10 episodes
2015	The Devil You Know		Lead role

Theatre

• 900 Oneonta (1994)
• The Cryptogram (1994)
• Edward II (1995)
• Lenny (1999)
• A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (2001-2002, 2003)
• Trumbo (2003)
• Race (2010)

Video games

Year	Title	Role
2000	102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue	Sgt. Tibbs (voice)
2011	Cars 2: The Video Game	Sir Miles Axlerod (voice)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]