Anthony Stewart Head

Head was born in Camden Town, London. His father was Seafield Laurence Stewart Murray Head (20 August 1919 – 22 March 2009), a documentary filmmaker and a founder of Verity Films, and his mother was actress Helen Shingler (29 August 1919 – 8 October 2019); they married in 1944 in Watford. His older brother is actor/singer Murray Head. Both brothers have played the part of Freddie Trumper in the musical Chess at the Prince Edward Theatre, London, with Murray a part of the original cast in 1986, while Anthony was in the final cast in 1989.

Head was educated at Sunbury Grammar School in Surrey, and furthered his education studying acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). In discussing why he chose acting as a career, in an interview in 2013 he said that "When it's in your family, it's a choice, it's there. It's not a jump to say: 'I want to act.' When I was six I was in a little show my mother's friends organised, playing the Emperor in The Emperor's New Clothes. I remember thinking: 'This is the business, this is what I want to do.'"