Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
BRIAN BLESSED
Known for his booming voice, BRIAN BLESSED has had quite a prolific career from Shakespeare to Doctor Who. He’s even been known to lend his massive vocals to audio plays and animation as well. BLESSED’s reputation isn’t just about his voice or his acting, but he has proven to have a larger-than-life personality that rivals his more well-known talents. He’s also an avid adventurer and has stories to rival the most daring of explorers. We’ve outlined ten enormous facts about one of Britain’s biggest actors and we’ll leave it up to you to determine if they’re true.
###BRIAN BLESSED
It’s not unknown for writers to use his name is all caps as an allusion to his volume as well as his ability to be quite a large ham. In fact, the Doctor Who forum Gallifrey Base is coded such that any use of his name automatically renders his name BRIAN BLESSED no matter how you type it.
###Bit of a Perv
BLESSED regards himself as a bit of a sexual legend to the point where he claims he “don’t need that [explicative] blue pill!” The scene in Flash Gordon where he gets a little too frisky with Gordon’s lady Dale was not in the script.
###Inter-Generational Friendship
BLESSED himself is now eighty-two years old but has counted among his friendship Katherine Hepburn, who was twenty-nine years his senior when they met on the set of Trojan Woman. On the flip side, he is also friends with Kenneth Branagh, who is twenty-one years younger. He also befriended Keanu Reeves on the set of Much Ado About Nothing and taught him how to meditate.
###Climb Every Mountain
BRIAN BLESSED was mentioned above as a great explorer and that’s no exaggeration. He is the oldest man to have visited the North Pole on foot. He has also climbed Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Mount Everest three times. During an expedition to the Venezuelan jungle, he survived a plane crash and still managed to make it to the center of the jungle. And honestly, these are only the tip of the iceberg for what he’s done.
###Not Following in the Family Trade
BRIAN’s father was a coal miner and was dead set that his son would never spend a day in the mines. He was actually very supportive when BLESSED decided to go into acting.
###Packs a Punch
BLESSED once accidentally knocked out co-star Peter Capaldi on the set of The History of Tom Jones in 1997. And in a further explanation of one of his great arctic treks, BRIAN punched a polar bear right in the nose (which, of course, is one way to get them to leave you alone, though not one we’d recommend).
###Call the BIG Midwife
BRIAN BLESSED once found himself in the position where he had to deliver a baby. In 1963, he discovered a woman who had gone into labor in Richmond Park with no one around to help her. Not only did BRIAN stop to help deliver the child, but he bit off the umbilical cord himself and then called for help until the ambulance showed up. We presume he was loud enough that he didn’t actually have to find a public phone.
###Doctor Who?
BRIAN actually turned down the role of the Doctor in the show in 1966, which would ultimately go to Patrick Troughton. However, he would later appear as King Yrcanos in “The Ultimate Foe”.
###Dr. Brian Doolittle
While BLESSED hasn’t played Doctor Doolittle, he is a great animal lover in real life. He and his wife run an animal sanctuary that has over 1,000 animals in their care. He’s also involved in wildlife and other conservation causes.
###The Most Unbelievable Boxing Match
And to top all this off, BRIAN BLESSED has actually had a boxing match with the Dalai Llama.
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