Sean Bean: Biography

Shaun Mark Bean was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England on April 17, 1959. His parents are Brian and Rita Bean; he has a younger sister, Lorraine. He is 5'11" and has green eyes and dark blond hair. Sean left school at 16 with two "O" levels, in Art and English. He had a variety of jobs, including selling cheese in a supermarket, shovelling snow, and working as a welder at his father's steel fabrication shop before he discovered acting while attending an art course at Rotherham College. Sean auditioned for London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in April 1980. One of 30 successful applicants (out of a field of 11,000) to win a scholarship, Sean began studying at RADA in Spring 1981. He was awarded a silver medal for his graduation performance in Waiting for Godot in Spring 1983. Sean is divorced from his third wife, actress Abigail Cruttenden, who played Jane Sharpe in the Sharpe television series. Sean and Abigail married on November 22, 1997 at the Hendon Registry Office in London, with a blessing the following day, November 23, at St. Andrews Church, Totteridge. Their daughter, Evie Natasha, was born on Friday, November 6, 1998, weighing 9 lbs, 3 oz. Sean also has two daughters, Lorna (born in October 1987) and Molly (born in September 1991) from his second marriage, to actress Melanie Hill. Sean and Melanie were married on 27 February 1990 at the Haringey Civic Centre in North London. They divorced in August 1997. Sean's first marriage was on 11 April 1981 to hairdresser Debra James, his childhood sweetheart. Sean had earlier enrolled in the January 1981 (Spring) term at RADA and travelled back to Sheffield to marry Debra during the break between the Spring term and the Summer term.

Sean Bean: Career

Before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Sean Bean was going to enter his father's Sheffield steel fabrication business as a welder. He changed his mind after he garnered praise for acting in a few roles in local theater while taking an art class at Rotherham College. Bean received a scholarship to the prestigious academy and graduated a few years later with the Silver Medal for his performance in Waiting for Godot. Shortly thereafter, Bean performed in several West End productions. He also appeared in Romeo and Juliet with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. In the first he played Tybalt and in the second he played Romeo. Following more stage experience, Bean made his feature film debut in 1986 in Derek Jarman's Carvaggio. Two years later, after returning to the stage, Bean appeared in Mike Figgis' Stormy Monday and in another Jarman effort, War Requiem. In addition to his filmwork, Bean also has a thriving television career that began in the mid-'80s. Notable television work includes Clarissa (1992) and Sharpe (1993). It is as a "bad guy" in films such as Patriot Games and Golden Eye that Bean is best-known in the U.S., though in the 1997 remake of Anna Karenina, he plays the dashing and romantic Count Vronsky. After joining Robert De Niro and Jean Reno for some international espionage in John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1998), taking a psychotic turn in Essex Boys (2000) and kidnapping the daughter of a respected adolescent therapist in Don't Say a Word (2001), Bean made his way to New Zealand for a role in director Peter Jackson's eagely anticipated Lord of the Rings trilogy

Sean Bean: Films

Silent Hill (2006), Clarissa (2005), Sharpes - Revenge Collection Set (2005), Sharpes - Rifles Collection Set (2005), Sharpes - Sword Collection Set (2005), North Country (2005), The Dark (2005), Flightplan (2005), The Island (2005), National Treasure (2004), Troy (2004), Lady Chatterley (2003), The Big Empty (2003), Equilibrium (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Don't Say A Word (2001), Essex Boys (2000), Airborne (1999), Bravo Two Zero (1999), Ronin (1998), Anna Karenina (1997), Shopping (1996), Goldeneye (1995), Black Beauty (1994), Lorna Doone (1993), Patriot Games (1992), Fool's Gold (1991), The Field (1990), The Fifteen Streets (1989), How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), Stormy Monday (1988), Caravaggio (1986), When Saturday Comes