Colin Firth awarded CBE by the Prince of Wales

Hollywood royalty Colin Firth has been awarded a CBE by the Prince of Wales - whose grandfather the actor brought to life on the big screen.

King George VI's battle to overcome a stutter was famously portrayed by Firth, who won a string of awards for his moving performance.

Playing the monarch in The King's Speech earned Firth a Bafta, a Golden Globe and most notably the Best Actor Oscar, and garnered huge critical acclaim for the film.

The 51-year-old chatted briefly to the prince after the presentation was made in Buckingham Palace's ballroom where the investiture ceremony was held. But he declined to talk to waiting media before returning to his seat to watch other recipients receive their honours.

It was the sight of Firth emerging from a lake in a dripping wet shirt and britches during the BBC's Pride and Prejudice series that made him an instant heart-throb. His role as the brooding hero Mr Darcy in 1995 caught the eye of a legion of female fans and film directors.

Firth's parents were academics and as a child he spent time in Africa and America before the family settled in Winchester, Hampshire. He is also a prominent political campaigner, though he publicly withdrew his support for the Liberal Democrats after the row over tuition fees.

The celebrity has been in demand as an actor since leaving the Drama Centre London where he learned his craft. He was picked for a succession of television and theatre parts before his portrayal of Robert Lawrence in the TV production Tumbledown earned him a Royal Television Society Best Actor award.

After his groundbreaking role as Mr Darcy in the costume drama other parts followed in quick succession from a typical gentleman in The English Patient to a football-obsessed teacher in the film version of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and an aristocrat in Shakespeare in Love.

Six years after first playing Mr Darcy he took on a character with the same name in the film Bridget Jones's Diary opposite Renee Zellweger. He showed off his vocal chords as banker Harry Bright in the Abba-themed musical Mamma Mia! and earned his first Bafta for his portrayal of a suicidal English professor living in Los Angeles in A Single Man.

But his role as George VI, who battles a speech impediment with the help of Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush, captured the imagination of the movie-going public.

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