Frank Grimes was born in Dublin and trained at the Abbey Theatre. He was a member of the Abbey Players for seven years and performed in O'Casey, Synge, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Joyce and O'Connor. He scored an early success as the young Brendan Behan in Borstal Boy which he played over one thousand times in Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, Paris and New York. In New York, at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre, it won the Tony award in the 1969-1970 season and Frank Grimes received a Tony award nomination for Best Actor. He won the Outer Critics' Circle award and Variety voted him the Most Promising Young Actors of the Year in the New York critics' poll.Theatre: UK: David Bryan in Veterans (Royal Court); Arthur in The Farm (Royal Court/Mayfair Theatre); Sammy in Life Class (Royal Court/Duke of York's); Erhart in John Gabriel Borkman (National Theatre); Konstantin in The Seagull, Aubrey in The Bed Before Yesterday (Lyric Theatre); Jerry Divine in Juno and the Paycock (RSC at the Aldwych); Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard (Haymarket Theatre); Ned inHoliday (Old Vic); Colin in The March on Russia (RNT); title role in Hamlet (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); Christy in The Playboy of the Western World (Riverside Studios); Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (Young Vic); Husz in A Bring Room Called Day (Bush Theatre); co-wrote and played Stephen in The Fishing Trip (Croydon Warehouse); Da in Da (Riverside Studios); Martin Dysart in Equus, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Roche in Afore Night Come (Theatr Clwyd).
Off Broadway: Mick in The Holly and the Ivy (Roundabout Theatre); Steven in In Celebration (Manhattan Theatre Club); Charles in Blithe Spirit (Hole Theatre, New York); Christy in The Playboy of the Western World (Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival); Hamlet in Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington).
Frank Grimes recently performed his one-man show The He and the She of It - a portrait of James Joyce at the Wimbledon Theatre and at the Dublin fringe festival.
Television: The Bill - 3 times (Carlton); Dark Realm, Conor in Plastic Man, Kavanagh QC (Carlton); Silent Witness (BBC); The Wingless Bird (Festival Films); five episodes of Casualty (BBC); Dying of the Light (YTV); Comics (Cinema Verity); Sherlock Holmes (Granada); Lady Chatterley's Lover (BBC); You Me and Marley, Blind Justice (BBC); Strumpet City (RTE); The Old Crowd (LWT); My Son My Son, The Illumination of Mr Shannon, The Shadow of a Gunman (BBC); And No One Could Save Her (ABC).
Film: Paul in When the Sky Falls (Irish Screen); Dr Wilhelm Reich in Reich (Oranur Productions); Priest in The War of the Buttons; Dubrolsky in The Dive; The Leged of Crystalstone; Mr Beckwith in The Whales of August; Couples and Robbers Robert Tressell in Give Us This Day; Sammy in Britannia Hospital; Tony in The Outsider; Major Fuller in A Bridge Too Far; Pierre in The Tulips of Haarlem.
Awards: Daily Post award for Best Actor for Equus and A Christmas Carol; Clarence Derwent award for Holiday; Plays & Players award for Best Actor for The Farm; Silver Nymph Best Actor award for Blind Justice; Jacob's Television Award for Best Actor for Strumpet City.