Eddie Izzard

Suzy Eddie Izzard ( IZ-ard; born Edward John Izzard, 7 February 1962) is a British stand-up comedian, actor and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues.

Izzard's stand-up comedy tours have included Live at the Ambassadors (1993), Definite Article (1996), Glorious (1997), Dress to Kill (1998), Circle (2000), Stripped (2009), Force Majeure (2013) and Wunderbar (2022). She starred in the television series The Riches (2007–2008) and has appeared in numerous films, including Ocean's Twelve (2004), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Valkyrie (2008), Absolutely Anything (2015) and Six Minutes to Midnight (2020). Izzard has also worked as a voice actor on films such as Five Children and It (2004), The Wild (2006), The Lego Batman Movie (2017) and the Netflix original series Green Eggs and Ham (2019). Among various accolades, she won two Primetime Emmys for Dress to Kill and was nominated for a Tony Award for her Broadway performance in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

In 2009, Izzard completed 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief, despite having no history of long-distance running. In 2016, she ran 27 marathons in 27 days in South Africa in honour of Nelson Mandela, raising £1.35 million. In addition to her native English, she has performed stand-up in Arabic, French, German, Russian and Spanish, and is an active supporter of Europeanism and the European Union.

A dedicated Labour Party activist, Izzard twice ran unsuccessfully for the party's National Executive Committee and then joined as the most successful initially non-elected person after Christine Shawcroft resigned in March 2018. In 2022 and 2023, Izzard attempted to become the party's prospective parliamentary candidate (for Sheffield Central and Brighton Pavilion respectively); she was not selected in the members' ballots.

Early life and education

Izzard was born Edward John Izzard in Aden (then in Aden Colony and now in Yemen) on 7 February 1962, to English parents Dorothy Ella Izzard (1927–1968) and Harold John Michael Izzard (1928–2018). Their surname is of French Huguenot origin. Dorothy was a midwife and nurse, while Harold was an accountant who was working in Aden for British Petroleum at the time of Edward's birth. A brother, Mark, was born two years earlier.

When Izzard was a year old, the family moved to Northern Ireland and settled in Bangor, where they lived until Izzard was five. The family then moved to Wales, where they lived in Skewen.

Izzard was six when her mother died of cancer. The siblings built a model railway to occupy their time while their mother was ill, which was later donated to Bexhill Museum in 2016. Following the death, Izzard attended the private St John's School in Newton, St Bede's Prep School in Eastbourne, and Eastbourne College. She has said that she knew she was transgender at the age of four, after watching a boy being forced to wear a dress by his sisters, and knew she wanted to be an actor at the age of seven.

She studied drama at the University of Sheffield.

Career

Comedy

Izzard began to toy with comedy while at university with her friend Rob Ballard. The two took their act to the streets, often in the Covent Garden district of London. After splitting with Ballard, Izzard spent a great deal of the early 1980s working as a street performer in Europe and the United States. She says that she developed her comedic voice by talking to the audience while doing solo escape acts. She then moved her act to the stand-up comedy venues of Britain, performing her routine for the first time at the Banana Cabaret in London's Balham area.

In 1987, Izzard's first stage appearance was at the Comedy Store in London. She refined her comedy material throughout the 1980s and began earning recognition through improvisation in the early 1990s, in part at her own club, Raging Bull in Soho. Her breakthrough came in 1991 after she performed her "raised by wolves" routine on the televised Hysteria 3 AIDS benefit.

In 2000, for the comedy special Dress to Kill, Izzard won two Primetime Emmy Awards: Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program and Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program, while the special was nominated for Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Special.

Izzard is fluent in French and has performed stand-up shows in the language; since 2014, she has also started to perform in Arabic, German, Russian and Spanish, languages that she did not previously speak.

Acting

In 1994, Izzard's West End drama debut as the lead in the world premiere of David Mamet's The Cryptogram with Lindsay Duncan, in the production at London's Comedy Theatre. The success of that role led to a second starring role, in David Beaird's black comedy 900 Oneonta. In 1995, she portrayed the title character in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II.

In 1998, Izzard appeared briefly on stage with Monty Python in The American Film Institute's Tribute to Monty Python (also referred to as Monty Python Live at Aspen). As part of an inside joke, she walked on stage with the five surviving Pythons and was summarily escorted off by Eric Idle and Michael Palin when attempting to participate in a discussion about how the group got together. In July 2014, she appeared on stage with Monty Python during their live show Monty Python Live (Mostly) as the special guest in their "Blackmail" sketch.

Izzard portrayed comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1999 production of Julian Barry's 1971 play Lenny. In 2001, she replaced Clive Owen in Peter Nichols' 1967 play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Comedy Theatre. Izzard and Victoria Hamilton repeated their lead roles when the show was brought to Broadway in 2003 in the Roundabout Theatre Company production. The revival received four Tony Award nominations, including Best Revival of a Play, Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress for its stars Izzard and Hamilton in their Broadway debuts, and Best Direction for Laurence Boswell. In June 2010, she replaced James Spader in the role of Jack Lawson in David Mamet's play Race on Broadway.

Izzard has appeared in numerous films, starting with The Secret Agent in 1996, and has appeared as several real-life individuals, including Charlie Chaplin in The Cat's Meow, actor Gustav von Wangenheim in Shadow of the Vampire, General Erich Fellgiebel in Valkyrie and wartime pioneer of radar Robert Watson-Watt in the BBC drama film Castles in the Sky. Other roles have included Mr Kite in Across the Universe, Lussurioso in Revengers Tragedy and criminal expert Roman Nagel in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. Her voice work has included the titular "It" in Five Children and It, Nigel in The Wild and the mouse warrior Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Izzard declined to reprise the role as Reepicheep, a role understudied by Simon Pegg in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Izzard has stated that she felt she learned to act while working on the film Circus.

In 2009, Izzard was the subject of Sarah Townsend's documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story, which addresses BBC's Watchdog reporting of "recycling material from an old tour".

Izzard appeared in the 2009 BBC science fiction miniseries The Day of the Triffids, based on the 1951 novel, alongside Jason Priestley, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Dougray Scott and Brian Cox. She played Dr. Hatteras, a sceptical psychology professor, in the Showtime series United States of Tara and appeared in six episodes of the 2013–15 American psychological horror television series Hannibal as Dr. Abel Gideon. In 2021, she appeared in the television series The Lost Symbol based on Dan Brown's 2009 novel of the same name.

At the London 2012 Paralympic Games, Izzard presented the medals to the athletes who had won the 800m T54 race, including gold medalist David Weir.

She has appeared on a number of episodes of BBC One's Have I Got News for You and as a guest on The Daily Show. In 2017, she read excerpts from her autobiography Believe Me for BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.

From 25 January to 3 March 2024, Izzard performed a one-person version of Shakespeare's Hamlet, adapted by her brother Mark and directed by Selina Cadell, at the Greenwich House Theater in New York. The run was extended three times. The show transferred to Riverside Studios, London, with previews from 23 May 2024.