Colin Firth Biography (With Photos!)

Colin Firth is our odds-on favorite to win the best actor Oscar tonight. Because "60% of the Academy will be voting for him because they're still in love with the big lug as Mr. Darcy from 1995," as we noted earlier. 

[Post-Oscar note: yup, he won! Photo below.] 

Firth photos follow, along with some key facts from our Colin Firth biography.

The 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice is the show that really made Colin Firth a star. Firth has long since run out of things to say about Mr. Darcy and especially about that saucy swimming scene:

"In the original script, Mr. Darcy is nude when he jumps into the pond. That was never really going to happen because it was being made for the BBC, so alternatives had to be found. Y-fronts were not a very good alternative. So, in the end, it was decided to just throw him into the pond, clothed. Nobody on the set, nobody, had any feeling that anything particularly sexy was happening."

Turns out it wasn't even Firth in the pond.  Ah, well.

Colin Firth was 35 at the time -- he was born on 16 September 1960 in the town of Grayshott in Hampshire, England. He'd been acting since the 1980s, first gaining notice in the nostalgic cusp-of-World War I miniseries Lost Empires in 1986.

Colin Firth played another Mr. Darcy -- Mark Darcy -- in the 2001 film Bridget Jones's Diary (and again in the 2004 sequel, both times with Renee Zellweger as Bridget). Still the romantic object of desire, though. Nice sweater!

Colin Firth was in longhair mode in 2003, channeling painter Jan Vermeer and kinda-wooing Scarlett Johansson in The Girl With the Pearl Earring.

In real life, Colin Firth has been married since 1997 to Livia Giuggioli. (Sorry, ladies.) They have two sons, Luca (born 2001) and Mateo (born 2003).  He also has a 20-year-old son, Will, from a relationship with actress Meg Tilly.

Which brings us to The King's Speech. Colin Firth's co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are also nominated for Oscars in the best supporting categories, and the film itself is considered the front-runner for best picture. We'll see.

[Post-Oscar note: Bonham Carter and Rush struck out, but The King's Speech won best film.  And here's Colin Firth with his Oscar.]

Ready for still more details? See our biography of Colin Firth >>

(Photo credits: the Weinstein Company; the BBC; Studio Canal; Lions Gate Films; WENN; WENN; Nikki Nelson / WENN)