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| John Rhys-Davies | |
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 John Rhys-Davies at a convention in 2003 | |
| Born | May 5 1944 Salisbury, Wiltshire, England |
| Occupation | character actor, voice artist |
| Years active | 1964 - present |
John Rhys-Davies (born May 5, 1944) is a Welsh character actor and voice artist. He is perhaps best known for his portrayals as the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which he also voiced Ent Treebeard. He also portrayed Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders, General Leonid Pushkin in the James Bond film The Living Daylights and provided of voices of Cassim in Disney\'s Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Man Ray in Spongebob Squarepants, and Tobias in the computer game Freelancer.
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Rhys-Davies was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, the son of Welsh parents Mary Margaretta Phyllis Jones, a nurse, and Rhys Davies, a mechanical engineerhttp://www.filmreference.com/film/62/John-Rhys-Davies.htmlhttp://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800020883/bio and colonial officer.http://www.ntz.info/gen/n02072.html He spent much of his childhood in his mother\'s home town of Ammanford, Wales although he was also raised in Africa. He was sent to Truro School in Cornwall. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the University of East Anglia.http://archive.southwalesguardian.co.uk/2003/4/30/11269.html
Although appearing sporadically on UK television in the early 1970s (for instance, as gangster Laughing Spam Fritter opposite Adam Faith in Budgie), Rhys-Davies first gained widespread popularity for his performance as Praetorian officer Naevius Sutorius Macro in I, Claudius. He then began to appear more frequently, and not just in the UK, with roles as a Portuguese captain Rodrigues in the 1980 television miniseries Shogun, and in the Indiana Jones movies. He has since appeared in numerous television shows and miniseries, including a leading role in the television series Sliders as Professor Maximillian Arturo from 1995 to 1997. He also made several appearances on Star Trek: Voyager as a holodeck version of Leonardo da Vinci. He also starred as an ally of James Bond in The Living Daylights and appeared in the movie One Night with the King.
He is also known for his popular portrayal of the dwarf Gimli in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. The filmography of that was very tricky since he is of average height while his character is very short. Rhys-Davies is the only cast member who played a member of the Fellowship but did not receive a tattoo of the word "nine" written in the Tengwar script. The other members of the cast (Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood) got the same tattoo. Rhys-Davies\' stunt double got the tattoo instead.
In addition to voicing the Ent Treebeard in Lord of the Rings, Rhys-Davies has also lent his distinctive deep, Welsh voice to many video games and animated television series, including playing the role of Hades in Justice League and in Gargoyles, as the character Macbeth. He appears in the full motion video cut scenes of computer games including Ripper (as Vigo Haman) (1996), Dune 2000 (as Noree Moneo) (1998), and the Wing Commander series (as James Paladin Taggart). He also lent his vocal talents to the games Freelancer and Lords of Everquest (both in 2003) and the game Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness, which was released with his narration on a CD ROM version in 1995. In 2004, he was the unknowing subject of an internet prank that spread false rumours in several mainstream media sources that he was scheduled to play the role of General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III.John Rhys-Davies in Star Wars Episode III: A Grievous Media HoaxHe also made a voice role on Baldur\'s Gate: Dark Alliance as the character Jherek, and narrated a documentary called "The Glory of Macedonia".
Rhys-Davies in an autograph session in Sweden
He is a member of the British Conservative Party. As a university student in the 1960s, he was a radical leftist, but he started to change his views when he went to heckle a young local member of parliament, Margaret Thatcher. Rhys-Davies says that "she shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that I decided I ought for once to shut up and listen."
In 2004, in a magazine interview, Rhys-Davies compared the theme of The Lord of the Rings with the current situation of Western Europe, whose civilisation he described as being challenged by a rise of the Muslim population, stating:
His comments were endorsed by the British National PartyBNP, Gimli battles for the WestBNP, “Stand, men of the West”. Rhys-Davies commented that it was "distressing to find yourself on a BNP leaflet.
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