As an actor, Attenborough is best remembered for his film roles in Brighton Rock (1948), I'm All Right Jack (1959), The Great Escape (1963), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Doctor Dolittle (1967), 10 Rillington Place (1971), Jurassic Park (1993) and Miracle on 34th Street (1994).

On stage, he appeared in the West End in 1952, originating the role of Detective Sergeant Trotter in Agatha Christie's murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has since become the longest-running play in London and the world.

[3] Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).

[5] The sisters moved to the United States in the 1950s and lived with an uncle, where they married and achieved American citizenship; Irene died in 1992, and Helga in 2005.

After initial pilot training, he was seconded to the newly-formed Royal Air Force Film Production Unit at Pinewood Studios, under the command of Flight Lieutenant John Boulting (whose brother, Peter Cotes, later directed Attenborough in the play The Mousetrap), where he appeared with Edward G. Robinson in the propaganda film Journey Together (1945).

After being qualified as a sergeant, he flew on several operations over Europe, filming from the tail gunner's position to document the outcome of RAF Bomber Command sorties.

The Attenboroughs took a 10 per cent profit-participation in the production, which was paid for out of their combined weekly salary; Attenborough later wrote in his autobiography, "It proved to be the wisest business decision I've ever made... but foolishly I sold some of my share to open a short-lived Mayfair restaurant called 'The Little Elephant' and later still, disposed of the remainder in order to keep Gandhi afloat.

[10] Attenborough worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, including in the 1950s, appearing in several successful comedies for John and Roy Boulting, such as Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959).

[11] During the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Regimental Sergeant Major Lauderdale.

In 1977, he played the ruthless General Outram, again to great acclaim, in the Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece The Chess Players.

Later he made occasional appearances in supporting roles, including as Sir William Cecil in the historical drama Elizabeth (1998), Jacob in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and as "The Narrator" in the film adaptation of Spike Milligan's comedy book Puckoon (2002).

He made his only appearance in a film adaptation of Shakespeare when he played the English ambassador who announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead at the end of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).

[14] Despite maintaining an acting career alongside his directorial roles, Attenborough never directed himself (save for an uncredited cameo appearance in A Bridge Too Far).

He founded the Jane Holland Creative Centre for Learning at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland in memory of his daughter who died in the tsunami on 26 December 2004.

[19] He founded The Richard Attenborough Arts Centre on the Leicester University campus in 1997, specifically designed to provide access for the disabled, in particular as practitioners.

[24] He had a lifelong ambition to make a film about his hero the political theorist and revolutionary Thomas Paine, whom he called "one of the finest men that ever lived".

More than 100 items went on display at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007, in an exhibition dedicated to family members lost in the tsunami.

In December 2008, he suffered a fall at his home after a stroke[43] and was admitted to St George's Hospital, Tooting, South West London.

In November 2009, Attenborough, in what he called a "house clearance" sale, sold part of his extensive art collection, which included works by L. S. Lowry, C. R. W. Nevinson and Graham Sutherland, generating £4.6 million at Sotheby's.

"[46] In June 2012, shortly before her 90th birthday, Sheila Sim entered the professional actors' retirement home Denville Hall, in Northwood, London, for which she and Attenborough had helped raise funds.

In October 2012, it was announced that Attenborough was putting the family home, Old Friars, with its attached offices, Beaver Lodge, which came complete with a sound-proofed cinema in the garden, on the market for £11.5 million.

"[48] In December 2012, in light of his deteriorating health, Attenborough moved into the same nursing home in London to be with his wife, as confirmed by their son Michael.

[49][50] He requested that his ashes be interred in a vault at St Mary Magdalene church in Richmond beside those of his daughter, Jane, and his granddaughter, Lucy, both of whom had died in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

[55] Attenborough was the subject of This Is Your Life in December 1962 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Savoy Hotel, during a dinner held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap, in which he had been an original cast member.

In 1992, he had been offered a peerage by Neil Kinnock, then leader of the Labour Party, but declined it as he felt unable to commit himself to the time necessary "to do what was required of him in the Upper Chamber, as he always put film-making first".

[67] In early 1973, he was portrayed as "Dickie Attenborough" in the British Showbiz Awards sketch late in the third series of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

A portrayal similar to that seen in Monty Python can be seen in the early series of Spitting Image, when Attenborough's caricature regularly appeared to thank others for an imaginary award.

In 1985 he was played by Chris Barrie in The Lenny Henry Show, in the final part of a serial pastiching A Passage to India and The Jewel in the Crown.