David Hemmings

About this actor

David Hemmings (18 November 1941 – 3 December 2003) was an English film actor and director, whose most famous role was the photographer in Blowup. In his later acting career, he was known for his distinctive eyebrows and gravelly voice. Hemmings was born in Guildford, Surrey. His education at Alleyn's School and Glyn Technology School (then The Glyn Grammar School) led him to start his career performing as a boy soprano in several works by Benjamin Britten, who formed a close friendship with him at this time. Most notably, he created the role of Miles in the opera Turn of the Screw. Hemmings' intimate, yet innocent, relationship with Britten is described in John Bridcut's Britten's Children. Although many commentators identified Britten's relationship with Hemmings as based on an infatuation, throughout his life Hemmings maintained categorically that Britten's conduct with him was beyond reproach at all times. Hemmings played the title role in Britten's The Little Sweep in 1952, which...