Ben Kingsley

Description

Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE, (born December 31, 1943) is a British actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Gandhi, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. <p>Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, the son of Ann Lyna Mary (née Goodman), an actress and model, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a medical doctor. Kingsley's father, an Ismaili Muslim, was born in Kenya of Indian Khoja Gujarati descent, as Kingsley's paternal grandfather was a spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where Kingsley's father lived until moving to England at the age of fourteen. Kingsley's mother, born out-of-wedlock, was "loath to speak of her background"; she was of partial Russian Jewish descent, though Kingsley has said that he is "not absolutely certain" about his maternal ancestry. Kingsley grew up in Pendlebury, Salford, where he studied at University of Salford. He then moved to Lancashire, where he...