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Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA (born 29 October 1925) is an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television. Hardy was born in Cheltenham, England, the son of Jocelyn (née Dugdale) and Henry Harrison Hardy. His father was headmaster of Cheltenham College. He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Oxford University where he gained a BA (Hons) in English. On BBC Radio Four's Desert Island Discs he described the degree he obtained as "shabby" Hardy began his career as a classical actor. In 1959 he appeared as Sicinius opposite Laurence Olivier in... MORE

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA (born 29 October 1925) is an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television. Hardy was born in Cheltenham, England, the son of Jocelyn (née Dugdale) and Henry Harrison Hardy. His father was headmaster of Cheltenham College. He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Oxford University where he gained a BA (Hons) in English. On BBC Radio Four's Desert Island Discs he described the degree he obtained as "shabby" Hardy began his career as a classical actor. In 1959 he appeared as Sicinius opposite Laurence Olivier in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon, directed by Peter Hall. He then appeared in Shakespeare's Henry V on stage and in television's An Age of Kings (1960), and subsequently played Coriolanus in (The Spread of the Eagle, BBC, 1963) and Sir Toby Belch for the BBC Television Shakespeare in 1980. It was while playing Henry V that Hardy developed an interest in medieval warfare, and he later wrote and presented an acclaimed television documentary on the subject of the Battle of Agincourt. He has also written two books on the subject of the longbow, Longbow: A Social and Military History and The Great War Bow LESS