Richard Attenborough

What a great actor. He made three very good films in the mid-1960s, each character completely different than the other.

In 1963 in The Great Escape he was Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, the leader of the escapers. Bushell is upper class, shows little emotion and is a competent officer driven to make the escape succeed.

Next Attenborough was in Guns at Batasi in 1965. In that film he plays a loud-mouthed, brash British sergeant-major assigned to an African regiment sometime about 1960. At first he seems obnoxious and bullying. But he is revealed later in the film to be a very competent soldier and leader, especially when the chips are down.

Finally Attenborough plays French Burgoine in The Sand Pebbles (1966). In this role he is a quiet American sailor, not really a leader at all who urges Jake Holman to "go along with the program" and not make waves.

Attenborough even appeared in a non-singing role in the film Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat (1999) towards the end of his career. He reminds me of Alec Guiness in the range of his characters.