Yesterday night Colin Firth won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as King George VI.  Today I would like to talk a little bit about the role, and then about the actor.

King George VI was not supposed to be the king of England [1].  He was the replacement, the B team, the “spare.”  His older brother, King Edward VIII, was on the throne for less than a year before abdicating for the love of a divorced American woman.  He then dabbled in pro-Fascist politics and hobnobbed as a jet-setting aristocrat.  He had the chance to be a great king but he threw it all away.  His younger brother, though, who became King George VI, was a better man and a better king.  Married to a strong-willed Scottish woman named Elizabeth (the same name as his queenly daughter, who currently sits on the throne as Elizabeth II), he overcome a horrible stuttering problem and led Britain bravely through the difficult days of World War II.

He also served as an inspiration for a young fellow (not young anymore) named David Seidler, who himself struggled with a stuttering problem, and then wrote a script about it for a movie, which became the King’s Speech, and for which he won an Academy Award as well.  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it’s on my short list of films from the past year to watch (which includes Inception and The Social Network).  The fact that the film recovers the struggle of a brave man to conquer his speech impediment, and records his struggle for posterity, is a worthy contribution to a very worthy man.

It is only fitting, therefore, that the award-winning actor who played King George VI be an actor of some renown in his own right.  Anyone who is a fan of Jane Austen is familiar with Colin Firth, from his role as Fitzwilliam Darcy in the famed 1995 miniseries for Pride & Prejudice.  In fact, his performance in that role inspired more than one grown woman to write embarrassing essays about him that appeared in print in an homage to Jane Austen’s classic work [2].  As perhaps the definitive actor to play the very plum role of the prim but passionate Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mr. Firth has become the beau ideal of many a young woman for the past 15 years.

That said, this is not the only other major role that Colin Firth has played.  His imdb page [3] shows that he has succeeded in great and small roles, some unjustly forgotten and some lighthearted and popular.  He played Charles Gould in an adaptation of Nostromo, one of my favorite novels.  He played Mark Darcy (not a coincidental name) in two movies adapted from the Bridget Jones Diary series.  He played in such popular romances as Mamma Mia and Love Actually.  He has remained private about his personal life (I can’t blame him for that, nor will I discuss his personal life here), but he has been a capable character actor now for over 15 years.  He has a body of work that will be remembered for a long time, and now he has an Academy Award for his performance of a worthy king.  Let’s give credit where credit is due and show our appreciation for King George VI and the capable actor who portrayed him, Colin Firth.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George_VI

[2] “My Darling Mr. Darcy,” by Teresa Medeiros and “My Firth Love,” by Lani Diane Rich, both taken from Jennifer Crusie, editor, Flirting With Pride & Prejudice:  Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece (Dallas, TX:  BenBella Books, 2005).

[3] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000147/