Anthony Hopkins (Wales, 1937-??)



Figure 1.--.

The British actor Anthony Hopkins was raised in Walses. I watched a Bravo (US cable netwok) TV profile on Hopkins. Seems he hated school. But what surprised me was that the video about his school days was stock footage on schools with boys wearing smocks. Obiously French images having nothing to do with Wales and schools in Wales. Strange that they would show repeated images of french schools while the naration and comments from Hopkins himself explained how abusive his schools were and how much he hated school.

Parents

Anthony's mother was Muriel Phillips. His father was Richard Arthur who Anthony remembers had great energy, occassionally violent. He had limited formal education, but was self-educated. He trained at a bakery in Piccadilly. He built up a bakery. Anthony's grandfather was an alcoholic who lost the limited assetts the family had. He was a free-thinker who became a vegetarian and a militant trades unionist.

Childhood

Philip Anthony Hopkins was born on January 1, 1937, at 77, Margam, near Port Talbot in southern Wales. Anthony was an olnly child. The family lived in Port Talbot above the bakery. Anthony was ithdrawn as a boy. He enjoyed drawing, painting and playing the piano . He learned to play to a high standard. He did not play much with the other children.

Education

I watched a Bravo (US cable netwok) TV profile on Hopkins. Seems he hated school. But what surprised me was that the video about his school days was stock footage on schools with boys wearing smocks. Obiously French images having nothing to do with Wales and schools in Wales. Strange that they would show repeated images of french schools while the naration and comments from Hopkins himself explained how abusive his schools were and how much he hated school. A reader writes, "There're a lot of people cranking these TV programs +out, and sometimes 'quick and dirty' is the only way to keep things on budget. Perhaps the French stock footage was what was most easily available. Did you check the credits? Might have been a French production company." Perhaps, but the biography is otherwise quite nicely done.

Anthony was very unhappy at school. He was dyslexic at a time when itwas not understood. He performed poorly academically. His teachers thought he was dim witted. He said that boys were beaten if they did not learn. H describe a very abusive educational system. He says that the major reason he became an actor was that he was so poor in school. His nick name became Mad Hopkins. He did so poorly at Port Talbot's Central School in 1949 that his parents sent him to a boarding school, West Monmouth school in Pontypool. He had five terrible terms there making no progress before his parents decided to bring him home. They placed him in Cowbridge Grammar School. This seems a strange choice for a boy havibg difficulty in school. Grammar schools were academically demanding. Anthony spent 4 years there achieving only one lone O-level--in English.

Cowbridge Grammar School

Cowbridge Grammar School is one of the best known grammar schools in Wales and a good example of a country grammar school. It has a considrable history. We know that it was functioning as early as 1608. In 1860 it was functioning as both a day and boarding school. A master published a memoir based on his experiences in a boarding house at Cowbridge at the same time Anthony was at the school. [Cobb]

Sources

Cobb, Peter. At Cowbridge Grammar School, 1949-66. ISBN: 0 9537029 1 X







HBC





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Created: May 28, 2003
Last edited: June 28, 2003