BBC News Online looks at the career of actor Edward Fox, who has been honoured with an OBE for his services to theatre and film.

Edward Fox is best remembered for his consummate performance as Edward VIII in the television drama Edward and Mrs Simpson in 1980.

The 65-year-old actor has long-played roles which require him to display aristocratic or upper class qualities.

He won a TV Bafta for his performance as the Prince of Wales opposite Cynthia Harris as Wallis Simpson.

Although he is fondly remembered for his royal role, his career in stage and screen has spanned four decades.

One of his biggest roles was as the slippery British assassin in the 1973 adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal.

He starred in the Oscar-winning Gandhi as General Dyer and as M in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again.

Fox starred in the BBC series I Was a Rat in 2002

He recently starred in the lavish BBC period drama Daniel Deronda as the central character's baronet stepfather Sir Hugo Mallinger.

And his next project will see him team up with his 28-year-old daughter, Emilia, in Republic of Love, which is based on a novel by Pulitzer prize-winning author Carol Shields.

No jeans

Fox has a reputation of his dapper and well-spoken, almost Edwardian, on-screen persona translating into real-life.

He admits he still wears the suits he donned for Edward and Mrs Simpson, even though he knows it makes him seem fusty.

But he is proud of the fact that he has never worn jeans, adding: "I won't wear shell suits either."

He has also confessed that his womanising ways have caused upset to his long-term partner, actress Joanna David, mother of Emilia.

He once controversially said he did not think a man's fidelity was a matter "of much importance" and that "a woman cries and having cried a little bit she bores herself and it's over".

But he also abhors the image of an older man out on the prowl.

"I find something rather offensive about men of my age slavering over younger women," he said.

Countryside

Fox was educated at Harrow School and went on to join the Coldstream Guards, but "wasn't viewed as the right stuff".

Although he has been on stage and screen for nearly 40 years he described acting as a "hard business" because of the many months he spent between jobs.

But he persevered, going on to win three Bafta awards, including best supporting actor for The Go-Between in 1970, and 1977's A Bridge Too Far.

He and Joanna David also have a 13-year-old son named Freddy, while Fox has a daughter, Lucy, from his first marriage.

He continues to be passionate about the things that matter to him and was recently on the Countryside March in London to protect hunting.