David Suchet

Born: May 2 1946
Where: London, UK

Best known on both sides of the Atlantic for his TV portrayal of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, he is also an assured stage and movie actor.

On the big screen, Suchet was memorable as the spy in The Little Drummer Girl, a Soviet contact in The Falcon and the Snowman and the French-accented hunter, Lafleur, in Harry and the Hendersons.

In 1988, he was the South African antagonist to Barbara Hershey in A World Apart and followed with a supporting turn as the Bishop in To Kill a Priest.

But his first screen lead came in 1997 when he played a homeless man mistaken for a great film director in Jonathan Nossiter's acclaimed independent Sunday.

The actor trained for the stage at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and began his career in 1969 as an assistant stage manager at a small theatre in Chester.

By 1973, he had joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet.

Over the years, Suchet has returned to the RSC many times, in roles increasing in stature, including playing Shylock in a 1978 production of The Merchant of Venice.

Playing Poirot has dominated his body of TV work, but Suchet also portrayed Sigmund Freud in The Life of Freud and had the lead in the TV version of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

The brother of ITN newscaster John Suchet, he was appointed an OBE in the 2002 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Recent work has included a camp French arms dealer in The In-Laws remake and he can next be seen in Foolproof with Ryan Reynolds.