Eton-Educated British Actor Damian Lewis Overcame a Near-Fatal Motorcycle Crash and a Family Tragedy on His Way to the Spotlight
by Russell Scott Smith | US Weekly | October 15, 2001
IT WAS A COLD WINTERS NIGHT IN London when Damian Lewis crashed, face-first through a car’s windshield and almost died. That evening, in 1998, the actor had been buzzing along the chilly, dark streets on his Honda VFR750 motorcycle, heading home from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Barbican Theatre, where he was playing Don John the Bastard in Much Ado About Nothing. Suddenly, a car veered into Lewis’s path. His bike rammed the car’s front bumper, and he flew over the handlebars; Lewis broke the car’s windshield with his chin. “Thank God I had a full-face helmet on,” the 30-year old actor says. “If I hadn’t, I’m not sure I’d be here now. Or at least my acting career would be very different.” Continue reading An Officer and A Gentleman – Oct 15, 2001