6/24/2023 0 Comments Stephen hawking knighthood![]() He told the Sunday Times the honour is something you get “if you clean the toilets well at King’s Cross station”. The film director and later star of the Esure car insurance adverts turned down an OBE in 2006. The film director turned down a CBE in 1962 but accepted a knighthood just months before his death in 1980. “The Honours system sucks and we should start again, devise a fair and independent new method to annually acclaim exceptional citizens for their contribution to the nation, not to overweening political parties or the semi-skilled, dysfunctional Windsors.” Alfred Hitchcock Picture: Getty Images “But I now speak with the zeal of a convert,” she added. ![]() The film director turned down an OBE because: “It’s all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest. “Even to talk about the subject would be totally incorrect, lèse majesté,” she told an interviewer a decade on. The actor and political activist turned down the offer of a damehood in 1999 but refuses to say why. The celebrity chef turned down an OBE in 2001 for reasons unknown. It’s not what I spent my life working for,” he said. ![]() The Thin White Duke turned down a knighthood in 2003: “I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. A spokesperson said at the time: “Paul was surprised and flattered, but it wasn’t really for him.” David Bowie Picture: Getty Images The former Jam frontman rejected a CBE in 2006. The Trainspotting director and choreographer for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics was similarly humble.
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