Career: Hurt made both his London stage debut (in the acclaimed Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger) and his first film, The Wild and the Willing, in 1962. More theatre work and films such as A Man for All Seasons and 10 Rillington Place followed. In 1975, he won a Bafta for his portrayal of Quentin Crisp in TV drama The Naked Civil Servant, which made his name. He received Oscar nominations for Midnight Express and The Elephant Man. Other acclaimed projects included Nineteen Eighty-Four, Scandal, Alien and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He also portrayed the Tory politician Alan Clark in The Alan Clark Diaries for the BBC. He reprised his role as Quentin Crisp in 2009 in An Englishman in New York. He went on to appear in the final two Harry Potter films, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Doctor Who. He died on January 27, 2017, at the age of 77.

Career: Hopkins's first professional work was on stage. He later joined Laurence Olivier's National Theatre, but left to make acclaimed movie The Lion in Winter. A steady stream of TV and film work followed (as well as some theatre appearances), including War and Peace, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, The Bunker, A Bridge Too Far, The Elephant Man, and Across the Lake. But Hopkins didn't become a major Hollywood star until after giving up alcohol. He won an Oscar for 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, and since then has starred in such hits as The Remains of the Day, Howards End, Hannibal, Shadowlands, Thor and Hitchcock.

Career: Jones quickly gained a reputation as a fine character actor while working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Early TV roles came in Z Cars, The Baron and The Avengers. His first film was Marat/Sade in 1967. He and Dudley Sutton are the only actors to have appeared in the original and revamped versions of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Other TV work has come in the likes of Jackanory, Inspector Morse, The District Nurse and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. Jones has become a cult hero thanks to his film work for legendary studio Hammer (Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and The Satanic Rites of Dracula) and director David Lynch (The Elephant Man, Dune, Wild at Heart, On the Air and Hotel Room). Jones has played Sandy in Emmerdale since 2005.

Career: Lynch enrolled at the Pennysylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he made his first films, including the animated Six Men Getting Sick and The Alphabet. He began working on his debut feature, Eraserhead, in 1971. It was released six years later and has become a cult favourite. In 1980 he received the first of his Oscar nominations for directing and co-writing The Elephant Man. The others were for Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. Celebrated TV series Twin Peaks was a hit with critics and viewers alike. Since then he's made such films as Wild at Heart, Lost Highway and Inland Empire, branched out into selling coffee beans and even produced electro-pop music.