Malcolm McDowell (born 13 June 1943) is an English actor. He is known for portraying Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange (1971) and the title character in the "Mick Travis trilogy" (1968–1982). McDowell is the recipient of an Evening Standard British Film Award, alongside nominations for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
McDowell's other notable film credits include The Raging Moon (1971), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Time After Time (1979), Caligula (1979), Cat People (1982), Blue Thunder (1983), The Caller (1987), Star Trek Generations (1994), Tank Girl (1995), Mr. Magoo (1997), Gangster No. 1 (2000), I Spy (2002), I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003), The Company (2003), Doomsday (2008), Easy A (2010), The Artist (2011), and Bombshell (2019). He also played Dr. Samuel Loomis in the 2007 remake of Halloween and its sequel, Halloween II (2009).
Outside film, McDowell appeared in recurring roles on Entourage (2005–2011) and Heroes (2006–2007), starring roles on Franklin & Bash (2011–2014) and Mozart in the Jungle (2014–2018), and has played Patrick "Pop" Critch on the Canadian series Son of a Critch since 2022. He has also voiced characters in various animated shows, films and video games, such as Superman: The Animated Series (1996–1999), Metalocalypse (2007–2012), Bolt (2008), Fallout 3 (2008), the Elder Scrolls franchise (2014–2021), and Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2016).
Early life
McDowell was born in June 1943 in Horsforth, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of hotelier Edna (née McDowell) and RAF officer (and later pub owner) Charles Taylor. He has an older sister named Gloria and a younger sister named Judy. Gloria later had a son, actor Alexander Siddig, alongside whom McDowell would appear in the film Doomsday (2008). The family moved to Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, where McDowell's father was stationed at the nearby RAF Carnaby. They then moved to Liverpool, where McDowell grew up and as a teenager took a job in a Planters nut factory in nearby Aintree, as well as working at his father's pub, The Bull and Dog, in Burscough, Lancashire. He began taking acting classes while in school, later moving to London in order to train as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
Career
Acting
McDowell initially secured work as an extra with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He made his film debut as school rebel Mick Travis in if.... (1968) by British director Lindsay Anderson. A landmark of British countercultural cinema, the BFI named if.... the 12th greatest British film of the 20th century. McDowell's next roles were in Figures in a Landscape (1970) and The Raging Moon (1971). His performance in if.... caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who cast McDowell for the lead in A Clockwork Orange (1971), adapted from the novel by Anthony Burgess. He gained massive acclaim for his performance as Alex DeLarge, a young sadist who undergoes brainwashing by the British government in a near future society. He was nominated for a Golden Globe, a National Society of Film Critics Award, and a New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Actor.
He worked with Anderson again for O Lucky Man! (1973, also wrote), which was inspired by McDowell's experience working as a coffee salesman, and Britannia Hospital (1982). McDowell regularly appeared on British television productions in the 1970s in adaptations of theatre classics, one example being with Laurence Olivier in The Collection (1976), as part of the series Laurence Olivier Presents. He starred in Aces High (1976) and co-starred in Voyage of the Damned (1976), and as Dornford Yates' gentleman hero Richard Chandos in She Fell Among Thieves (1978) and the title character in Caligula (1979). He made his Hollywood debut as H. G. Wells in Time After Time (1979). He has often portrayed antagonists, later remarking on his career playing film villains: "I suppose I'm primarily known for that but in fact, that would only be half of my career if I was to top it all up". In his biography Anthony Burgess: A Life, author Roger Lewis commented on McDowell's later career: "his pretty-boy looks faded and he was condemned to playing villains in straight-to-video films that turn up on Channel 5".