Forest Whitaker is a big guy. But as Charlie Parker his strength is channelled into his rhapsodic saxplaying – or inwards, in drug-fuelled self-destruction. Only once does he turn violent, when he sees acolyte Red Rodney following him down the junkie road.

“You want to play like Bird, you gotta shoot up like Bird,” he growls, pinning Red against the wall. The rest of the time, notes Washington Post critic Hal Hinson, “there’s tremendous delicacy and quiet – a sweetness – in what he does.”

Whitaker gives us a gentle, sad, brilliant man, glorious onstage, slope-shouldered and defeated off it.

Greatest Moment: Drunk, high and weeping, spewing off telegrams to his wife after their daughter’s death.

Also See: Jody (The Crying Game), Ghost Dog (Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai), Idi Amin (The Last King Of Scotland).