Sir David Courtney Suchet ( SOO-shay; born 2 May 1946) is an English actor, known for his work on stage and in television. He portrayed Edward Teller in the television serial Oppenheimer (1980) and received the RTS and BPG awards for his performance as Augustus Melmotte in the British serial The Way We Live Now (2001). International acclaim and recognition followed his performance as detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989–2013), for which he received a 1991 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor nomination.
As a stage actor, Suchet has been nominated for nine Olivier Awards and a Tony Award.
David Suchet was born on 2 May 1946 in the Paddington area of London, the son of Jack Suchet and his wife Joan Patricia (née Jarché; 1916–1992), an actress. Jack emigrated from South Africa to England in 1932, trained to be a physician at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, in 1933, and became an obstetrician and gynaecologist.
Suchet's father was of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, the son of Izidor Suchedowitz, originally from Kretinga in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. At some point, the family name was recorded as "Schohet", a Yiddish word, from Hebrew shohet, defining the profession of kosher butcher. Suchet's father changed his surname to Suchet while living in South Africa. David's mother was born in England and was Anglican. She was of Russian-Jewish descent on her father's side, and English Anglican on her mother's side.
He was raised without religion, but became a practising Anglican in 1986, and was confirmed in 2006.
Suchet and his brothers, John and Peter, attended Grenham House boarding school in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent. Then, after attending another independent school, Wellington School in Somerset, he took an interest in acting and joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 16. He trained and graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he later became a vice president, retiring in 2018.
Suchet began his acting career at the Gateway Theatre, Chester in 1969. He then appeared in many reps, including Worthing, Birmingham, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Liverpool Playhouse, and the Watermill Theatre. In 1973, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1981 to 1982, he played Bolingbroke in Richard II opposite Alan Howard. In 1993 he played "John" in the drama Oleanna at the Royal Court Theatre. It was directed by Harold Pinter, and co-starred Lia Williams as "Carol".
He made his West End debut opposite Saskia Reeves in the Kempinski play Separation, at the Comedy Theatre in 1987. From 1996 to 1997 he played opposite Dame Diana Rigg in the West End production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He was featured as Salieri from 1998 to 2000 in the Broadway production Amadeus. In 2007, at the Chichester Festival Theatre, he played Cardinal Benelli in The Last Confession, about the death of Pope John Paul I. In 2014, he reprised the role of Benelli in the Australian tour of the play.
He has been starring as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde at the Vaudeville Theatre in London since June 2015 and on tour. In January 2022, Suchet had a three-week residency at the Harold Pinter Theatre performing Poirot and More, A Retrospective.
In 1985, he played Inspector Japp in the Hercule Poirot television film Thirteen at Dinner, which starred Peter Ustinov as the main character that Suchet later played from 1989 to 2013 in the Agatha Christie's Poirot television series.
In 1985, Suchet played Blott in Blott on the Landscape.
In 1988, Suchet played Leopold Bloom in the Channel 4 documentary The Modern World: Ten Great Writers, in which some of James Joyce's Ulysses was dramatised. The same year, Suchet appeared as scheming adulterer Yves Drouard in A Time to Die, the penultimate episode of television series Tales of the Unexpected.
In 1989, he took the title role of Hercule Poirot for the long-running television series Agatha Christie's Poirot. In his book, Poirot and Me, Suchet mentions that prior Poirot actor Peter Ustinov one day approached him and told him that Suchet could play Poirot and would be good at it. Suchet then spoke to Brian Eastman from ITV, who sent him some of the novels to read. "And as I did so, it slowly dawned on me that I'd never actually seen the character I was reading about on the screen...He was quite, quite different: more elusive, more pedantic and, most of all, more human than the person I'd seen on the screen."
Still unsure, Suchet rang his brother John, who advised him against it, calling Poirot "a bit of a joke, a buffoon. It's not you at all." Suchet took his brother's advice as a challenge and accepted the role. In preparation, he wrote a five-page character study of Poirot detailing 93 different aspects of his life. Suchet said he took the list on set with him and "gave a copy to every director I worked with on a Poirot film."
Suchet went on to play the role in adaptations of every novel and short story featuring the character written by Agatha Christie. In preparation for the role, he says that he read every novel and short story and compiled an extensive file on Poirot.
In 2001, he had the lead role in the David Yates-directed BBC television serial The Way We Live Now. In April 2002, he played the real-life barrister George Carman in the BBC drama Get Carman: The Trials of George Carman QC.
In 2003, Suchet starred as the ambitious Cardinal Wolsey in the two-part ITV drama Henry VIII opposite Ray Winstone as Henry VIII and Helena Bonham Carter as Anne Boleyn. In May 2006, he played the role of the fallen press baron Robert Maxwell in Maxwell, a BBC2 dramatisation of the final 18 months of Maxwell's life. In 2006, he voiced Poirot in the adventure game Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express.
At Christmas 2006, he played the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing in a BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. He appeared in the disaster film Flood, released in August 2007, as the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, at a time when London is devastated by flooding. Suchet appeared on daytime-TV chat show Loose Women on 6 February 2008 to talk about his film The Bank Job, in which he played Lew Vogel, alongside Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows. In 2008, he took part in the genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?.