Walter Charles Dance, OBE (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor, screenwriter, and film director. Some of his most high-profile roles are Tywin Lannister in HBO\'s Game of Thrones (2011-2015), Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child (1986), Jonathan Clemens in Alien 3 (1992), Benedict in Last Action Hero (1993), the Master Vampire in Dracula Untold (2014), Lord Havelock Vetinari in Terry Pratchett\'s Going Postal (2010), Alastair Denniston in The Imitation Game (2014), and Emperor Emhyr var Emreis in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015).\n', '

Charles Dance was born in Rednal, West Midlands, the son of Eleanor Marion (née Perks), a cook, and Walter Dance (1874–1949), an electrical engineer who had previously served during the Boer War in South Africa. Growing up in Plymouth, he attended Widey Technical School for Boys (it closed when known as Widey High School in 1988) in Crownhill. Dance later attended The Leicester College of Arts (now known as De Montfort University), where he studied Graphic Design and Photography.\n', '

When Dance was about 3 years old, his father died. He had always thought that his father had been in his early fifties when this happened, but discovered that Walter was actually born 26 years earlier in 1874. In 2016 during filming of an episode for the genealogical series Who Do You Think You Are?. Dance also discovered that through his maternal line, he is of partial Belgian ancestry, descended from a family whose roots lay in Spa. His immigrant ancestor Charles François Futvoye (1777-1847) had been a pioneer in the art of Japaning during the early half of the 19th century, and a resident of Marylebone in London.\n', '

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