Thane Bettany

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Thane Bettany (born 1930) is an English actor.

Coming from a performance family, aged fourteen he entered ballet school and trained for some years with Ninette de Valois. After some time in National Service in the early 1950s, he was back in theaters. Because he had a bad stammer, Bettany went to study mime in Paris with Charles Antonetti, who ultimately helped him overcome the problem. Bettany returned to England and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, with which he played in Michael Redgrave's Hamlet and The Tempest with John Gielgud. In the 1950s, Bettany made films with Robert Mitchum and Laurence Olivier.

It was while on stage he met singer Anne Kettle, who was also from a performance family. The couple married and settled in Harlesden, North London, and although stage work continued to be his focus, when his children were born he looked for other work to be closer to home. The couple had three children: Sarah, actor Paul Bettany, and youngest son Matthew. They have two grandchildren, Emaly (by daughter Sarah) and Stellan (the son of Paul Bettany and his actress wife Jennifer Connelly). Thane is also the godfather of Sophie Rhys-Jones, Countess of Wessex and wife of Prince Edward.

The children were all initially sent to a convent school in North London, but when Paul was aged eight Thane got a job as drama teacher at Hertfordshire all-girls boarding school Queenswood School, and the family had residence on the campus.^[1] Thane continued to act,mainly in television, and it was during this time he made his famous appearance on Doctor Who, opposite Tom Baker as evil peasant Tarak.

Matthew died after a fall at Queenswood when he was only eight years old, which left the family grief-stricken. Soon after, Paul left home and went to live on his own in London, while Thane and Anne divorced in 1993 after 25 years of marriage. It was during this point that Thane entered deep therapy, as a result of which he seriously considered a sex change operation. However, he eventually decided that he was homosexual, and in 1999 settled down in rural Fife, Scotland with his partner Andy Little.

Bettany's most recent stage appearances were in The Duchess of Malfi (2002), Twelfth Night (2003), and Scenes from an Execution (2004).

[edit] Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1985	Maelstrom	Mr. Tovan	TV Miniseries
1980	The Talisman	Theodoric	TV Series
1980	Doctor Who: State of Decay	Tarak	TV Episode
1980	North Sea Hijack	Heyerdahl
1957	Fire Down Below