Made professional stage debut as spear carrier in Royal Shakespeare Company's (then Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon) "Othello"

Spent 14 seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in the classic Shakespearean repertory

Toured Europe with Laurence Olivier in Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus", playing Mutius

Portrayed the Fool to Charles Laughton's "King Lear"

Created the role of Lenny in RSC production of Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming", directed by Peter Hall

Acted in Thames TV adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher"

Broadway debut, reprising Lenny in "The Homecoming" (again directed by Hall); earned Featured Actor in a Play Tony Award

Film acting debut, "The Bofors Gun"; earned a British Film Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor

First American-produced film, John Frankenheimer's "The Fixer"

First film with Hall, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (as Puck); also acted in Richard Attenborough's feature directing debut, "Oh! What a Lovely War"

Reteamed with Attenborough as actors in Dick Clement's "A Severed Head", adapted from the Iris Murdoch novel by Frederic Raphael

Acted in Attenborough's "Young Winston"

Reprised his role as Lenny in the film version of "The Homecoming", directed by Hall

First film with director Richard Lester, "Juggernaut"

Starred as the French general in Thames Television production "Napoleon and Josephine"

American TV debut, "The Rebel" (CBS)

Reteamed with Lester for "Robin and Marian"

Overcome with debilitating stage fright during a London preview of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh", walked off and out of show; has referred to this as "my breakdown"

Debut in a US TV miniseries, "Jesus of Nazareth" (NBC)

Played Nazi S.S. Chief Heinrich Himmler in acclaimed NBC miniseries "Holocaust"

Portrayed author J.M. Barrie in the British TV drama "The Lost Boys"

Essayed Ash, the android member of the doomed crew, in Ridley Scott's "Alien"

Briefly returned to the stage in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya"; still overcome with stage fright was last theatrical role for 14 years

Received Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for portrayal of track coach Sam Mussabini in "Chariots of Fire", directed by Hugh Hudson

First film with director Terry Gilliam, "Time Bandits", playing Napoleon

Portrayed Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels in ABC miniseries "Inside the Third Reich"

Had supporting role in Hudson's "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes", playing the Belgian explorer who discovered the half-savage Tarzan

Won praise for his performance as a venal bureaucrat in Gilliam's "Brazil"

Portrayed Reverend Charles L Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) in "Dreamchild"

Played Captain Fluellen in Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V"; Branagh in his autobiography said that Holm is "very much of the anything you can do I can do less of school of acting", a statement regarded as a compliment by Holm

Portrayed Polonius in Franco Zeffirelli's "Hamlet", starring Mel Gibson

First film with David Cronenberg, "Naked Lunch"

Played Pod in "The Borrowers", two six-part BBC series based on the novels my Brit author Mary Norton; later aired on TNT as "The Borrowers" (1993) and "The Return of the Borrowers" (1996)

Returned to the stage after more than a decade in Pinter's "Moonlight"; the playwright had written the role of the embittered, dying patriarch expressly for him

Reteamed with Branagh for "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"; cast as the father of Victor Frankenstein (Branagh)

Cast as Dr Willis, one of the physicians who helped cure the monarch in "The Madness of King George"

Delivered a scene-stealing turn as a rival restaurateur in "Big Night", co-written, co-directed and co-starring Stanley Tucci

Perfected a "Noo Yawk" accent for his role as a cop in Sidney Lumet's "Night Falls on Manhattan"

Earned plaudits for his work as a seedy lawyer in Atom Egoyan's film version of "The Sweet Hereafter"

Cast as Cameron Diaz's father in "A Life Less Ordinary"

Starred in London stage production of "King Lear", directed by Richard Eyre

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II

Reprised his acclaimed turn as "King Lear" (again directed by Eyre) for TV; aired in the USA on PBS; earned Emmy nomination but lost award to Stanley Tucci (for his performance as gossip columnist Walter Winchell)

Reteamed with Cronenberg for "eXistenZ"; cast as an eccentric scientist

Provided voice of Squeeler in TNT's adaptation of George Orwell's "Animal Farm", a mixture of animation and live-action

Reteamed with Tucci (who directed, co-wrote and co-starred as Mitchell) for "Joe Gould's Secret", based on the character immortalized by New Yorker writer Joe Mitchell

Acted with Judi Dench, Olympia Dukakis and Leslie Caron in the HBO drama "The Last of the Blonde Bombshells"; played a drummer who had dressed in drag to play with an all-female orchestra; received Emmy nomination

Provided the voice of Pontius Pilate in the animated movie "The Miracle Maker"; aired on ABC in the USA

Starred opposite Summer Phoenix in the Cannes-screened "Esther Kahn"

Cast as Napoleon in "The Emperor's New Clothes"

Played Hobbit Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's filming of J R R Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy; all three films were shot simultaneously from 1999 to 2000 for release over a three year period: "The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001); "The Two Towers" (2002); "The Return of the King" (2003)

Headlined London stage revival of Pinter's "The Homecoming", portraying the patriarch; also briefly played NYC as part of a tribute to the author

Had featured role in the Jack the Ripper drama "From Hell"

Reprised his role as Bilbo Baggins in "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"

Starred with Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal in "The Day After Tomorrow"

Cast as Andrew Largeman's (Zach Braff) father in "Garden State"; writting and directorial debut for Zach Braff

Cast opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in "Aviator" directed by Martin Scorsese

Cast in Andrew Niccol's "Lord of War" with Nicolas Cage and Ethan Hawke

Played an eccentric analyst in "The Treatment"

Cast in the Pixar animated feature, "Ratatouille"