Port Talbot

Today we're in Port Talbot, on the south coast of Wales, more or less between Cardiff and Swansea. It's an industrial town, like so many others in this area, and started as a small port and market town. However, with industrialization and the large quantity of coal nearby the town soon became an important centre. And it wasn't always called Port Talbot. The original name was Aberavon until the 18th century but the Talbot family built many buildings and set up the port and railway system and so the town adopted their name.

Visitors to the town don't have much to see, to be honest, but if they look carefully they may just find the house where a famous international film star was born and grew up. Yes, Sir Anthony Hopkins was born in Port Talbot on New Year's Eve, 1937. His mother was a housewife and his father was a baker. His early schooldays weren't terribly successful and he preferred to do artistic subjects rather than academic ones, very probably due to his dyslexia. When he was 15 he had a chance meeting with another great Welsh actor, Richard Burton, who persuaded Anthony to go to drama school. So, he enrolled at the Cardiff College for Music and Drama and from there went to London to join the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), probably the best drama school in the world.

It was clear that Anthony was a wonderful actor and worked for some years in the theatre, although he was a bit bored of doing the same show night after night. Then in 1968 he got a chance to be in a film - The Lion in Winter - in which he played the role of King Richard I. Incidentally, his co-star in the film later became James Bond. This actor's name is Timothy Dalton.

Let's move on some years, to 1990 in fact. Anthony played a role that won him an Oscar for Best Actor. Do you remember the film, the one where he played a very scary cannibal? Of course you do, Silence of the Lambs. His interpretation of Dr Hannibal Lecter is considered by many fans to be his best so far. Since then he has made films such as Zorro, with Antonio Banderas and a fellow Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones. Brad Pitt was his co-star in Meet Joe Black, Tom Cruise acted with him in Mission Impossible 2 and Colin Farrell in the epic Alexander. So you can see he has worked with the biggest and best in the industry, but it is always he who seems to have the most powerful screen presence.

In April 2000 Anthony became an American citizen, not surprisingly as he has lived in Los Angeles for many years. He's currently married to his third wife, the previous two marriages having lasted for five years and thirty years. He has one daughter, who was born in 1967, and is also an actress. He became Sir Anthony in 1987 when he was awarded the CBE by Queen Elizabeth, the third highest honour for a citizen of the British Empire.