stamp

FEARS are growing that Rachel Reeves could slap a new tax on people’s homes to replace stamp duty and council tax.

The Chancellor is studying plans for a levy on houses worth over £500,000, according to The Guardian.

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The paper said the Treasury is looking at a “proportional property tax” which would be paid when owners sell their homes.

It claimed the shake-up could also pave the way for a new local levy to replace council tax, which is still based on 1990s property values.

But Treasury officials last night insisted that while tax reform is being explored, the details – including any threshold or rate – have not been decided.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “The best way to strengthen public finances is by growing the economy – which is our focus.

“Changes to tax and spend policy are not the only ways of doing this, as seen with our planning reforms, which are expected to grow the economy by £6.8bn and cut borrowing by £3.4bn.

“We are committed to keeping taxes for working people as low as possible, which is why at last Autumn’s Budget, we protected working people’s payslips and kept our promise not to raise the basic, higher or additional rates of Income Tax, employee National Insurance, or VAT.”

The Sun reported yesterday that homeowners would be forced to hand over £82,000 to the taxman thanks to Reeves’ inheritance tax raid.

Inheritance tax is charged on all assets above the £325,000 threshold, which is called the nil-rate band.

Anything above this threshold is charged at 40%, but your tax-free allowance rises by £175,000 if you leave your home to a direct descendant, such as a son, daughter or grandchild.

Currently, pension pots are exempt from inheritance tax – but this will all change from April 2027, when they will suddenly be subject to the 40% levy, following a tax grab announced in last year’s October Budget.

The change is expected to increase the number of estates paying death duties from 4% to 9.7%, dragging thousands of people into the tax net.

New analysis by Quilter shows that grieving families could face a nasty bill sting following the changes.

THERE can be no cooler claim to fame than to be name-checked in one of the greatest pop songs ever written.

Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, released at the height of the Swinging Sixties, featured a couple referred to only by their first names — Terry and Julie.

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Julie was Julie Christie, the drop-dead gorgeous actress, and Terry was Terence Stamp, her real-life boyfriend.

The accomplished actor died yesterday morning, aged 87, and last night his family led the tributes to him.

They said in a statement: “He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer, that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come.”

Along with a handful of other leading men from humble backgrounds such as Michael Caine and Albert Finney, Stamp epitomised a new breed of screen star.

Ruggedly handsome, uncompromising and from a tough working-class background, he shot to fame with his first movie.

But as the Sixties drew to a close, it looked as though the sun was also setting on his career — and it was almost a decade before he triumphantly reappeared.

The oldest of five children, he was born Terence Henry Stamp on July 22, 1938, in Bow, East London, to mother Ethel and father Thomas, a £12-a-week tugboat stoker.

‘I was in pain. I took drugs – everything’

That made him, according to the saying, a genuine Cockney — “born within the sound of Bow bells”.

His first home had no bathroom, only a tub in the backyard which he would be dragged into on Friday evenings.

He later remembered: “The first one in would get second-degree burns — and the last one frostbite.”

In 2016, he said of his childhood: “The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning. We were really poor.

“I couldn’t tell anybody that I wanted to be an actor because it was just out of the question. I would have been laughed at.

“When we got our first TV, I started saying, ‘Oh I could do that’ and my dad wore it for a little bit.

“After I’d said, ‘Oh I’m sure I could do better than that guy’, he looked at me and he said, ‘Son, people like us don’t do things like that’.”

As an 18-year-old, he tried to evade National Service — a year and a half of compulsory duty in the military — by claiming to have nosebleeds but was saved when he failed his medical because of fallen arches.

Determined to realise his dream, Stamp left home and moved into a basement flat on London’s Harley Street with another promising young Cockney actor — Michael Caine. The pair became firm friends and ended up in repertory theatre, touring around the UK together.

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Stamp’s performances soon brought him to the attention of acclaimed writer and director Peter Ustinov, who gave him the lead role in the 1962 historical drama movie Billy Budd. He was an overnight success.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, he also won the hearts of millions of female fans. And with his first Hollywood pay cheque, the image-conscious actor celebrated by buying himself a Savile Row suit and bleaching his hair blond.

Stamp heeded the career advice Ustinov gave him — to only accept job offers when something he really wanted came his way.

That may explain why he made only ten movies between 1962 and 1977.

His most famous role was as Sergeant Troy in Far From The Madding Crowd in 1967 — where he met and fell in love with co-star Julie Christie.

While Stamp was fast becoming a screen icon, his younger brother Chris was making waves in the music biz.

I was someone who was desperately unhappy. I was in pain. I took drugs — everything

Terence Stamp

Stamp Junior managed The Who and Jimi Hendrix, and was friends with many music legends of the time.

Talking about The Kinks’ classic Waterloo Sunset, written by frontman Ray Davies, Terence said: “My brother was quite friendly with him.

“He asked Ray Davies about that lyric and Ray Davies told my brother that, yes, he was visualising Julie and me when he wrote the lyric.”

But by the end of the decade, Stamp’s career was on the wane — and he was devastated when his “Face of the Sixties” model girlfriend Jean Shrimpton walked out on him — beginning what he called his “lost years”.

He said: “I’d lost the only thing I thought was permanent.

“The revelation came to me then — nothing is permanent, so what was the point trying to maintain a permanent state?

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“I was someone who was desperately unhappy. I was in pain. I took drugs — everything.”

He clung on to a feeling that “the call would come” — but the wait was a long one.

It finally came in 1977 when he was offered the part of General Zod in Superman.

He took it — mainly because it gave him the chance to appear alongside his acting hero Marlon Brando.

The part brought him to the attention of a new audience — and last night fans paid tribute to his portrayal of the banished alien villain.

In a nod to his role as the evil leader who demanded his enemies show him deference, one fan wrote on X: “Thank you Terry . . . we will kneel today in your honour.”

Another wrote: “Terence Stamp was much more than Zod but at the same time one of the best comic book villains ever.”

‘My present was a box of Star Wars stencils’

Making up for lost time after the 1978 release of Superman, Stamp made dozens of films from then until 2021, showing off his huge range.

He won universal praise for his portrayal of an East End villain in The Limey (1999) and transgender woman Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. Stamp also played Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum in Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, although the director George Lucas did not give him a huge payday.

He once cornered a producer during the shoot and complained about the pay.

He recalled: “I said, ‘Listen, you’re not paying much money and it’s making hundreds of millions. What goes down? What happens?’

“She said, ‘If the actors are really good, George gives them a present’.

“I thought, ooh, that’s all right. So when I leave the studio I go into my dressing room and there’s a box. It was a box of Star Wars stencils.

“That was my present. I just couldn’t believe it. I thought, may the Force be with you, George. I didn’t keep my stencils. I left them in the dressing room.”

Around that time, he said: “I moved from England some time ago because I wasn’t getting any work.

“I’m getting work in America and my films appear in France but for some reason I’m not getting any offers in Britain.”

But he kept himself busy by launching a successful parallel career as an author, writing five bestselling memoirs and two cookbooks.

He continued to select interesting roles and made a series of memorable cameo appearances, most recently, in 2021, in Edgar Wright’s psychological thriller Last Night In Soho.

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Although he dated some of the world’s most beautiful women, including Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and sisters Joan and Jackie Collins, he married only once — to Elizabeth O’Rourke.

The pharmacist was 35 years his junior and the marriage lasted from 2002 to 2008.

He admitted he was upset by the split but added: “I always said I’ll try anything once, other than incest or Morris dancing.

“I’d never been married and I thought I would try it, but I couldn’t make a go of it.”

Looking back on his career, he once said: “I’d be lying if I said I was completely indifferent to the success of all my contemporaries. There are parts I would love to have had a stab at, but I see the decisions I made as invaluable.

“I’m not just chasing an Oscar. I am learning how to die — how to build something within myself that does not become dust.”

Terence Stamp, the prolific English actor who played General Zod in the “Superman” films and earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the title character in “Billy Budd,” has died. He was 87.

Stamp died of undisclosed causes Sunday morning, his family confirmed to Reuters.

“He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come,” the family said in a statement.

Stamp began his acting career onstage in 1960 on London’s West End, but quickly received international attention and critical acclaim with his 1962 portrayal of the title role in Peter Ustinov’s adaptation of Herman Melville’s historical adventure novel, “Billy Budd.”

The humanity Stamp imbued in the tragic, stammering naval vessel crewman established Stamp as a talent to watch — with a Golden Globe Award for best male newcomer to prove it. Still, Stamp didn’t fully break through in Hollywood until 1978 when he embodied the chilling persona of Superman’s arch-nemesis, General Zod, in the first film of what would become a wildly successful franchise. Stamp took on the role again in 1982’s “Superman II.”

Stamp, with his calm demeanor and pale eyes, proved such a successful villain that he feared he was becoming typecast as one. In 1994 he decided to try something radically different when he took on the role of a transgender woman named Bernadette in Stephan Elliott’s now cult-classic film, “Priscilla Queen of the Desert.”

The film marked one of the first times a transgender character was portrayed as a lead in an international film. When the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May of that year, The Times’ then film critic, Kenneth Turan, interviewed Stamp for a feature. Stamp told Turan that he had been extremely nervous to play the role, but that a good friend encouraged him to take it, saying, “If you don’t start doing parts like this all you can look forward to is playing villains in Hollywood movies for the rest of your life,” and that, Stamp said, “stuck fear and loathing into my heart.”

“Priscilla,” about a group of drag performers on a bus trip to play a show at a resort hotel in the Australian desert, was a critical success, with Turan writing that it, “added some needed life to the Cannes Film Festival scene,” debuting in a “raucous midnight screening.”

In 1999 Stamp teamed up with Peter Fonda in Steven Soderbergh’s crime thriller, “The Limey.”

“When ‘60s icons collide, that should be the pitch for ‘The Limey,’,” noted a feature in The Times about the project. Stamp called his role as a British ex-con named Wilson investigating the death of his daughter in L.A., “the best offer I’ve had in 40 years.”

Stamp and Fonda, old friends who had long wanted to work together, were both experiencing comebacks at the time, with Stamp having just played Chancellor Finis Valorum in the blockbuster, “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.”

Terence Henry Stamp was born in London in 1938. His father was part of the Merchant Navy, and was often away for long periods of time. Stamp was raised mostly by his mother, grandmother and a variety of aunts. He loved the movies and idolized Gary Cooper and James Dean.

As a young man he earned a scholarship to Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art — one of Britain’s leading drama schools — and soon began performing at repertory theaters. His roommate at that time was the young actor Michael Caine, and the pair made friends with Peter O’Toole, quickly becoming enmeshed in the good-looking, fast-moving London party scene of the 1960s. Stamp famously dated actor Julie Christie, whom he starred alongside in director Ken Loach’s first feature film, 1967’s “Poor Cow.”

Stamp was known for his intense dedication to craft, particularly his ability to hone in on the psychological underpinnings of a given character. He was known for bringing the same depth of devotion to all his roles, including 1962’s “Term of Trial” alongside Laurence Olivier; William Wyler’s “The Collector” (1965); Joseph Losey’s “Modesty Blaise” (1966); John Schlesinger’s adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd” (1967); and a 50-minute short film by Federico Fellini, “Toby Dammit” (1968), among many others.

In 1999, while filming “The Limey,” he told The Times, “When you’ve had a long career you kind of merge all your great roles together. So I don’t think about being good in an individual thing. I think of the collective total, of working with [William] Wyler and Pasolini … I recently thought to myself, ‘You know, if it had to end now, it would really be OK.’ From ‘Billy Budd’ to ‘The Limey,” no actor could ask for more, so it’s a very great moment for me.”

Terence Stamp, the English actor who played the arch-villain General Zod in Superman films, has died at the age of 87.

In a career that spanned six decades, the Oscar-nominated actor starred in films including The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Far From the Madding Crowd and Valkyrie.

Stamp died on Sunday morning, his family said in a statement to Reuters news agency.

“He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and a writer that will continue to touch people for years to come,” they said.

Born in Stepney, east London, to working-class parents on 22 July 1938, Stamp attended grammar school before pursuing a career in advertising.

After securing a scholarship to go to drama school, he shot to fame in the 1960s, making his debut playing the titular role in Billy Budd, a 1962 film about a naive young seaman in the 18th century.

His performance earnt him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor and a Golden Globe for best newcomer.

He soon made a name for himself as a villain, with stand-out performances in Superman and Superman II as General Zod and Sergeant Troy in the 1967 Far From the Madding Crowd.

Doctor Who star, Alex Kingston, got married to Jonathan Stamp back in 2015 in Rome.

She is joining the Strictly Come Dancing class of 2025, but what do we know about her spouse?

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Who is Alex Kingston’s husband Jonathan Stamp?

Jonathan travelled the Mediterranean under a UNESCO International Arts Scholarship after he completed his master’s degree in classical studies at Oxford University, where he received a first-class honours.

He originally started as a journalist at The Economist and began a career in TV as a documentary maker, his speciality was history subjects.

The journalist started with Channel 4 and then with the BBC, where he made 20 documentaries and even won three Emmys for his work.

In 2000, he was appointed the Director of Development in the BBC’s History Department.

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In 2002, he was appointed the BBC’s Head of Archaeology.

Two years later, he left the Beeb to become a historical consultant and co-producer on Rome, a drama set in the last days of the ancient Roman Republic.

He was a historical consultant for TV projects with HBO, Showtime and Amazon, feature films with Sony and MGM Studios and console games with Ubisoft.

Since his work as a historical consultant, he has continued to work in TV and film, primarily as a graphic designer and art director.

More recently, he has written his own material for future TV projects.

This includes Ellis a period drama based on Ellis Island in 1902, and District IV, a cop show set in Caligula’s Rome.

He has also completed his first feature script, Lords of Florence, inspired by a true story about a painting competition between Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Do Alex Kingston and Jonathan Stamp have children together?

The couple do not have a child together; however, Alex Kingston has a daughter called Salome Violetta Haertel with her ex-husband, Ralph Fiennes, a fellow actor who has appeared in films like the James Bond franchise.

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What has Jonathan’s wife Alex said about her Strictly announcement?

Speaking about if she had any “signature moves” to the show’s hosts, Alex teased: “My hips don’t lie.”