The actor Bob Hoskins has died. He was only 71. He gave up
acting a couple of years ago when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s; death was
said to be from ‘Complications following pneumonia.’
Many will remember him best for his roles in several of
Dennis Potter’s television works. Any actor favoured by Dennis Potter is likely
to be good, and probably an interesting person too. Hoskins was perhaps a touch
typecast: he always seemed to be playing the
slightly-disreputable-simple-cockney-with-a-heart-of-gold. Even when he played
an out-and-out villain, as in ‘The Long Good Friday’, the values of sympathy,
warmth, humour and general decency typical of the best of those who have led
un-sheltered lives were evident: there is a bit in that very dark film where
the Hoskins character remarks of a colleague whose body is being taken away in
an ice-cream van ‘That’s not very nice, is it? Goin’ aht like a Raspberry Ripple.’
I knew him during the extended rehearsals, production week,
and first (and last) run of a dire musical called ‘Songbook’. Actors spend much
more time offstage, drinking tea and chatting in the Green Room, than on, and
he was much like the characters he played: there was, as they used to say, no ‘Side’
to him. He will be missed, both in and out of the theatre.
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