Brian Blessed

In 2016, Blessed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts and charity.

Blessed was born on 9 October 1936 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of William Blessed, a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and cricketer for the Yorkshire second team, and Hilda (née Wall). He had a brother Alan, seven years younger, and the pair "went everywhere together" when they were growing up. Alan Blessed died from leukaemia aged 52; their mother died aged 87, and their father died aged 99. Blessed's great-great-grandfather, Jabez Blessed, was the father of 13 children and worked as a china and glass dealer in Brigg, Lincolnshire; many of Blessed's relatives hail from Brigg.

Blessed went to Bolton on Dearne Secondary Modern School, and completed his national service in the RAF, in Bicester, before enrolling at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1956.