town of Port Talbot, South Wales, for more than 20 years, having first joined the YMCA in the 1950s. He supports other various philanthropic groups. He was a Guest of Honour at a Gala Fundraiser for Women in Recovery, Inc., a Venice, California-based non-profit organisation offering rehabilitation assistance to women in recovery from substance abuse. He is also a volunteer teacher at the Ruskin School of Acting in Santa Monica, California. Hopkins served as the Honorary Patron of The New Heritage Theatre Company in Boise, Idaho from 1997 to 2007, participating in fundraising and marketing efforts for the repertory theatre. Hopkins contributed toward the refurbishment of a £2.3 million wing at his alma mater, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, named the Anthony Hopkins Centre. It opened in 1999. Hopkins is a prominent member of the environmental protection group Greenpeace and as of early 2008 featured in a television advertisement campaign, voicing concerns about whaling in Japan. He has also been a patron of RAPt (Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust) since its early days and in 1992 helped open their first intensive drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit at Downview (HM Prison), a women's prison in Surrey, England. Hopkins is an admirer of the late Welsh comedian Tommy Cooper. On 23 February 2008, as patron of the Tommy Cooper Society, he unveiled a commemorative statue in the entertainer's home town of Caerphilly. For the ceremony, he donned Cooper's trademark fez and performed a comic routine. See also List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees List of British Academy Award nominees and winners List of actors with Academy Awards nominations List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories References External links 1937 births Living people 20th-century Welsh male actors 21st-century Welsh male actors Actors awarded knighthoods Alumni of RADA Alumni of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama American people of Welsh descent BAFTA fellows Best Actor Academy Award winners Best Actor BAFTA Award winners Best Actor BAFTA Award (television) winners British expatriate male actors in the United States Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Cool Cymru Critics' Circle Theatre Award winners David di Donatello winners Drama Desk Award winners Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music