Henri Szeps - Biography

Henri Szeps OAM (born 2 October 1943) is an Australian actor best known for his role as Robert Beare in the ABC situation comedy series Mother and Son.

Early life

Szeps was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in a World War II refugee camp. He grew up in foster families in Switzerland, in French orphanages, and in Paris, and migrated to Australia when he was 8 years old. He gained degrees in Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Sydney. During this time he studied acting at the Ensemble Theatre.

Acting career

His acting career began in the late 1960s and culminated in his performance of Harold in The Boys in the Band which he played for 21 months, in Sydney and all major Australian cities. He also made frequent television guest appearances in Homicide, Division 4, Woobinda, Skippy, etc. In 1971 he went to the United Kingdom where he worked on various stage productions, such as I, Claudius for Tony Richardson, and with the Prospect Theatre Company starring Derek Jacobi, touring around the Mediterranean and through Russia in 1973–74. He also made guest appearances on television: Colditz, The Strauss Family. In 1974 he returned to Australia and has since appeared in a great number of theatre productions at the Ensemble Theatre, the Nimrod Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company. Productions include The Good Doctor, Glengarry Glen Ross; four premieres of David Williamson's plays: Travelling North, Dead White Males, Heretic.

Szeps won a Helpmann Award for his performance of Herr Schultz in Sam Mendes's Australian re-production of Cabaret and a Norman Kessell Award for his autobiographical one-man show, I'm Not a Dentist. He has appeared in 4 other one-man shows: The Double Bass, Sky (written for him by John Misto), Why Kids and most recently Wish I'd Said That at the Ensemble Theatre. Four of these have had extensive national tours and the last two were also self-written.

Henri Szeps has appeared in numerous television productions, with continuing roles in Number 96, City West (SBS), Ride on Stranger (ABC), Daily at Dawn (Ch 7), and Palace of Dreams (ABC TV), for which he won a Penguin Award – best actor in a Mini Series. Films include Travelling North, Best of Friends, Run Rebecca, Run (written for him and Simone Buchanan) and which won the Ruby Slipper for best children's film (Los Angeles) and Warming Up (also written for him, and Barbara Stephens).

Henri Szeps is however best known in Australia for his performance as Robert Beare, the awful brother, the dentist, in Mother and Son where he starred alongside Ruth Cracknell (Maggie Beare) and Garry McDonald (Arthur Beare). It was in production on and off from 1983 to 1993.

As well his three one-man shows, Szeps has written a book on acting called All in Good Timing (Currency Press).

Personal life

He is married to actress Mary Ann Severne and has two children named Amos and Josh (who goes by the name Josh Zepps, and has a TV career in his own right in Australia and the US). In the Mother and Son episode The Money from series 2, Amos played a cameo role as a patient named Sean. He is now an organisational psychologist.

Honours and awards

• 1985 Penguin Award – Performance by an Actor in a mini-series (Palace of Dreams)
• 1997 Norman Kessell Memorial Award – Outsanding Performance (I'm Not a Dentist)
• 2003 Helpmann Award – Best Supporting Male Actor in a Musical (Cabaret)
• 2001 Medal of the Order of Australia ("for service to the arts, and to the community through the Australia Day Council and the National Centre for Childhood Grief")

External links

• Henri Szeps Webpage