lit a candle 2 Sept 2026In memory
Rest in peace, Sam. Thank you for every character you gave us.
Their story
Sir Nigel John Dermot Neill, known to everyone as Sam, was born on 14 September 1947 and died on 13 July 2026. A New Zealand actor who spent decades as a leading man on screen and on television, he was nominated three times for the Primetime Emmy Award and twice…
Sir Nigel John Dermot Neill, known to everyone as Sam, was born on 14 September 1947 and died on 13 July 2026. A New Zealand actor who spent decades as a leading man on screen and on television, he was nominated three times for the Primetime Emmy Award and twice for the Golden Globe, and in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services as an actor.
His beginnings were in Northern Ireland, where he was born to an English mother and a New Zealand father, and he was seven in 1954 when the family made the move to Christchurch. Audiences first took notice of him in Sleeping Dogs in 1977, and leading parts followed steadily: My Brilliant Career in 1979, then The Final Conflict and Possession in 1981, Evil Angels in 1988, Dead Calm in 1989, and both Death in Brunswick and The Hunt for Red October in 1990. He went on to appear in Until the End of the World in 1991, The Piano in 1993, In the Mouth of Madness in 1994, Restoration in 1995, Event Horizon in 1997, The Dish in 2000 and Hunt for the Wilderpeople in 2016. The role that carried his name around the world was Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park in 1993, a character he returned to in Jurassic Park III in 2001 and again in Jurassic World Dominion in 2022.
Television gave him another kind of following. He was Merlin in the 1998 miniseries of that name, a performance that brought him nominations for both a Primetime Emmy and a Golden Globe, and he took up the part once more in Merlin's Apprentice in 2006. Earlier he had been nominated for a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the real-life spy Sidney Reilly in Reilly, Ace of Spies in 1983, and again for playing a British officer during the Second World War in One Against the Wind in 1991. Later viewers knew him as Thomas Wolsey in The Tudors in 2007 and as Major Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders across 2013 and 2014.
Alongside the acting, his voice became familiar in its own right through the many documentary projects he narrated.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), retold in our own words. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
4Sam Neill at the 2010 Vancouver International Wine Festival
by People Forever
Sam Neill at Burghound Asia in Singapore
by People Forever
On September 14 1947 New Zealand actor & winemaker Sam Neill was born. His birth name is Nigel John Dermot Neill. He was born in Northern Ireland, in Omagh, Cou
by People Forever
Sam Neill at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival
by People Forever
Well put.
Thank you for sharing this.