Robert Powell was born in Salford, in Northern England, and was the youngest of three children. He studied law at the Manchester University. When he played in a student play the director was astonished by his performance and convinced him to study acting in Stoke-On-Trent. In 1964 he moved to London where he carried on with his theatrical career. Robert started in the movies playing supporting parts. His first film was 'Walk A Crooked Path' in 1969, which was followed by 'The Italian Job', with Michael Caine; he played one of the burglars. In 1970 his great chance arrived when he took part
… More in the first season of the cult tv series 'Doomwatch'. Robert played Toby Wren, who became one of the television viewers' favourite characters. Nevertheless, the writers decided to "sacrify" him and kill him off from the series. The truth is that Robert didn't want to make more than one season, however, he made the best choice! That's how Robert started his prolific career in the movies, as well as on television and the theatre. He played in two horror films that are today considered to be'cult' films: 'Asylum' and 'The Asphyx', but he had a supporting role in both of them.
In his private life Robert has always considered himself as an extremely shy person who wasn't lucky with girls. Indeed, he was very surprised at the popularity due to 'Doomwatch'. Eventually, he used that popularity to help him to meet the love of his life, Barbara Lord, a dancer from the group 'Pan's People' from the television show 'Top Of The Pops'. This is a sweet anecdote: as Robert was so shy, he didn't dare invite her to go out, so he decided to invite all of the dancers to a restaurant and he managed to sit beside Babs. And it was practically love at the first sight! They saw one another again, and three months later they moved in together... and the love story still continues. So romantic! In 1974 Ken Russell gave him the leading part of his most beautiful film, 'Mahler', he also played in the successful Tom Stoppard play 'Travesties' and "without any enthusiasm" he went to the casting for Franco Zefirelli's 'Jesus Of Nazareth'.
But, do you think this "unknown" demanded the role of Jesus? Of course not! In fact, believe it or not, Franco Zefirelli had in mind names such as Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman to play the son of God (thanks to whom it wasn't so!). In fact Robert was cast to play... Judas! But when Zefirelli looked at his eyes, he realised they could be Christ's eyes and asked him to be made up and characterised as Jesus. As soon as he was ready, everybody was astonished: Robert looked exactly as one had imagined Jesus to be. Before playing Jesus, Robert had to get married to Babs, because Sir Lew Grade, the producer, wouldn't accept that the actor who was to play Jesus "lived in sin". And at the end of filming he didn't want to get converted... which didn't please too many. For him Jesus was just a role as any other one, and as soon as he returned to London he took away that image because he didn't want to use it to further his career.
However, with 'Jesus of Nazareth' he became known all around the world, and a possible career in Hollywood was stopped by closed-minded producers who couldn't conceive of the actor who had played Jesus making anything containing overt sex or violence on screen (however,in the next film he made, Robert proved that he can "sin" on screen). Anyway, Robert feels better in Europe than in America, indeed one of his favourite places is Italy. In 1978 Robert Powell made one of his best films, 'The Thirty Nine Steps', and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of portraying Richard Hannay on the big screen. For Robert Powell the most important part of any role he plays (except for Jesus) is to find the ironic side, to have fun in order to make it less tough.
At around this time his son Barney was born. At the begining of the 1980's Robert took part in two films which were very important to his career 'Harlequin', 1982, for which he was awarded best actor at the Paris film festival, and in the same year for his performance in Krzistof Zanussi's 'Imperative', he was awarded best actor at the Venice film festival. At around this time his daughter Kate was born. All through this decade Robert took part in many films for Television. In 1989 Robert starred in a television series based on his character from 'The Thirty Nine Steps' - Hannay. In the 90's, this exellent actor became the narrator of many documentaries and showed his talent as a comedy actor with the popular tv series 'The Detectives', with Jasper Carrot. At this time Robert received an honorary MA from the Salford University, and nine months later he lost his father which affected him a lot because they became much closer in those years.
Robert works with many charitable associations and takes part in the events organised by them. Robert and his wife are also a very adventurous couple. In 2001 both took part in the BT Challenge, the toughest yacht race around the world. While Babs made the entire race, Robert just took part in one leg, with the actor Jeremy Irons. 
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