Who was the first actor to be knighted?
For many Brits in the performing arts, the chance to kneel before royalty and receive a tap on either shoulder with a ceremonial sword is a lifelong ambition.
Such fawning fealty to the edifice of empire and class-bludgeoning grotesquery hasn’t put off some of music and film’s biggest names from eagerly whacking a ‘Sir’ or ‘Dame’ before their name. While such titles are met with ever more cynicism from half the nation sick to the back teeth of the UK state’s pomp and ceremony, many still cling to its supposed significance.
David Beckham reportedly kicked up an almighty stink for years when perennially missed out from the annual honours list for years, finally getting his way in 2025. Original rock star rebel, Mick Jagger, was chased by Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher on drug charges during swinging London’s countercultural zenith, before dutifully deferring to Her Majesty, not even forty years later, and acting legend Gary Oldman even claimed turning such a royal gesture was “incredibly rude”. Then again, he also claimed that the Golden Globes were “90 nobodies having a wank” before gushingly accepting his 2018 gong for Darkest Hour.
It’s the knighthood rejections that are more impressive. Always a real one, David Bowie turned down both a CBE in 2000 and the full-Sir-shebang three years later, stating, “I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don’t know what it’s for. It’s not what I spent my life working for.” Stephen Hawking, Roald Dahl, and LS Lowry all couldn’t be arsed with it all, and some even handed back their award, as John Lennon did with his MBE in 1969.
Before popular culture became subsumed into the honours’ sanitising establishment mangle, only the esteemed elite of the highfalutin arts were called up to join the royal club. Master thespian Laurence Olivier was knighted as early as 1947, fellow actor dating from the silent era, John Gielgud, received his knighthood in 1953, and comedy icon Charlie Chaplin had to wait til 1974 for his title. Yet, to go back to the first actor bestowed with the coveted ‘Sir’, we have to reach back before there was even a film industry.
So, who was the first actor to be knighted?
One of the most celebrated actors of the Victorian stage, Henry Irving was knighted in 1895 for his services both to the performing craft but also for his efforts in raising the stature of British theatre.
Having forged a relationship for his roles as Hamlet and Shylock in the respective Shakespeare plays, Irving eventually took over management of London’s Lyceum Theatre, thrusting the venue on the worldwide map for its innovative production designs and pioneering the practice of dimming the lights to focus on-stage attention.
From 1878, Irish writer Bram Stoker worked at the Lyceum’s business department, and based on contemporary accounts of the stage actor’s commanding presence, coupled with Stoker’s intense friendship, much has been made of Irving’s possible influence on Dracula’s famous undead count. A blue plaque can be found at Mayfair’s Grafton Street, where he lived, as well as in the Somerset village of Keinton Mandeville, where Irving spent the first 13 years of his life, known by his birth name John Brodribb.
