Bob Hoskins Passes Away[/b]
Actor Bob Hoskins, best known for roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Long Good Friday, has passed away aged 71 as a result of pneumonia.
Hoskins died on Tuesday in hospital, surrounded by family, according to his agent. Though he retired from acting in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, his back-catalogue of work is gargantuan. He was arguably best known for films including Hook, The Long Good Friday and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, though was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in 1986 for Mona Lisa. Gamers will probably best remember him from the 1993 movie adaptation of Super Mario Bros. in which he played the red-garbed plumber. Even though it drew incredibly negative reviews from critics, the wider public and even the man himself, it still remains a memorable movie, even if not for the right reasons.
His final movie was 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman, in which he starred opposite Chris Hemsworth and Kristen Stewart. For someone who came into theatre by accident, Bob Hoskins preserved a sort of accidental realism about his performances, even after he made his breakthrough on film in The Long Good Friday. He was a brilliantly sweaty and physical founder member of the Ken Campbell Roadshow, performing in pubs and clubs with Campbell, Sylvester McCoy, Andy Andrews, Jane Wood and Dave Hill – this was his real training, as he expanded gleefully into macabre and sensational bar-room tales of mischief, murder and dropped trousers.
The Roadshow was admired by the director Lindsay Anderson, who was instrumental in booking these uncouth clowns into the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs. For Hoskins, this led to major casting, in a studio production of Brecht's Baby Elephant and then, on the Court's main stage, in premieres of Edward Bond's Lear (1971) with Harry Andrews, and Charles Wood's Veterans (1972) opposite John Gielgud. His working-class chippiness served him well as the dustman Alfred Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalion with Diana Rigg in the West End (Albery theatre, 1974) and a major Royal Shakespeare Company season at the Aldwych (1976), when he brought muscle and earthiness to his performances in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and Shaw's The Devil's Disciple opposite Tom Conti.
Actor Bob Hoskins, best known for roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Long Good Friday, has passed away aged 71 as a result of pneumonia.
Hoskins died on Tuesday in hospital, surrounded by family, according to his agent. Though he retired from acting in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, his back-catalogue of work is gargantuan. He was arguably best known for films including Hook, The Long Good Friday and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, though was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in 1986 for Mona Lisa. Gamers will probably best remember him from the 1993 movie adaptation of Super Mario Bros. in which he played the red-garbed plumber. Even though it drew incredibly negative reviews from critics, the wider public and even the man himself, it still remains a memorable movie, even if not for the right reasons.
His final movie was 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman, in which he starred opposite Chris Hemsworth and Kristen Stewart. For someone who came into theatre by accident, Bob Hoskins preserved a sort of accidental realism about his performances, even after he made his breakthrough on film in The Long Good Friday. He was a brilliantly sweaty and physical founder member of the Ken Campbell Roadshow, performing in pubs and clubs with Campbell, Sylvester McCoy, Andy Andrews, Jane Wood and Dave Hill – this was his real training, as he expanded gleefully into macabre and sensational bar-room tales of mischief, murder and dropped trousers.
The Roadshow was admired by the director Lindsay Anderson, who was instrumental in booking these uncouth clowns into the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs. For Hoskins, this led to major casting, in a studio production of Brecht's Baby Elephant and then, on the Court's main stage, in premieres of Edward Bond's Lear (1971) with Harry Andrews, and Charles Wood's Veterans (1972) opposite John Gielgud. His working-class chippiness served him well as the dustman Alfred Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalion with Diana Rigg in the West End (Albery theatre, 1974) and a major Royal Shakespeare Company season at the Aldwych (1976), when he brought muscle and earthiness to his performances in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and Shaw's The Devil's Disciple opposite Tom Conti.