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Sparring partner to Michael Caine, Stepney boy stamp was the pin up of 60s British cinema. Born in 1939, he smouldered in Peter Ustinov's adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, earning him an Oscar nod for his debut performance. His next was William Wyler's The Collector, about a stalker who kidnaps an art student, and it won him a Best Actor award at Cannes. The next decade saw him work with the cream of European directing talent: John Schlesinger (Far From The Madding Crowd), Pasolini (Teorema), Fellini, Vadim and Malle on Spirits of The Dead, and Ken Loach on Poor Cow. Stamp also dated some of the icons of 60s beauty; his relationship with Julie Christie was immortalised in the Kinks' classic Waterloo Sunset. The 70s and 80s saw Stamp sleepwalk through films like Superman and Wall Street, but no one could ignore his world weary transvestite in The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.
