| Bob Hoskins | ||||||||||
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| Birth name | Robert William Hoskins | |||||||||
| Born | October 26 1942 Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England |
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| Spouse(s) | Jane Livesey Linda Banwell |
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Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born October 26, 1942) is an English Academy Award-nominated actor, perhaps best known for playing Cockney rough diamonds and gangsters, and for his performances in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Hook (1991).
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Personal life
Hoskins was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England, the son of Elsie Lillian (née Hopkins), a cook and nursery-school teacher, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., a bookkeeper and lorry driver.[1][2][3] One of Hoskins' grandmothers was a Gypsy.[4] He has two children with his current wife, and two children from a previous marriage.
Career
After beginning his acting career on the London stage in the late 1960's, Hoskins' performances in British films such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and Mona Lisa (1986) won him the wider approval of the critics and, in the case of the latter, a Cannes Award, an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also delivered comic turns in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985) and Super Mario Bros. (1993). Hoskins was not initially aware that Super Mario Bros. was based on the popular video game of the same name. His son had asked him what film he was working on, and recognizing it, showed Hoskins the video game on the Nintendo video game console. In a 2007 interview, he referred to the film as "the worst thing I ever did".[2] During the late 1980s and early 1990s he appeared in advertising for the recently privatised companies of British Gas and British Telecom (now BT Group). Hoskins made a cameo appearance as a rock band's manager in the Pink Floyd film The Wall, with a two-word expletive spoken part. He has also directed films. He was slated to be a last-minute replacement in the film The Untouchables if star Robert De Niro had not decided to play Al Capone. When De Niro took the part, director Brian De Palma mailed Hoskins a cheque for US$ 200,000 with a Thank You note, which prompted Hoskins to call up De Palma and ask him if there were any more movies he didn't want him to be in. Hoskins' first appearance to mainstream American audiences was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Some of Hoskins' other notable appearances include playing opposite Cher in Mermaids (1990), bosun Smee to Captain Hook in Hook (1991), and Uncle Bart, the violent "owner" of Jet Li in Unleashed. He has also performed in several television productions for the BBC, including Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven, Flickers, David Copperfield, and Wind in the Willows. He played Nikita Khrushchev in the movie Enemy at the Gates (2001). Khrushchev was shown in his political commissar days during the Battle of Stalingrad. He received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Mrs Henderson Presents. Hoskins has done some of the voice-overs on advertisements for Tesco and more recently Argos. He recently starred in the music video for Jamie T's Sheila, playing the titular girl's father and lip-syncing to the music.
Filmography
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See also
References
- ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/42/Bob-Hoskins.html
- ^ a b http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2140160,00.html
- ^ http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/bobhoskins/interviews/sold.html
- ^ Moline, Karen (1988). Bob Hoskins: An Unlikely Hero. Michigan: Sidgwick & Jackson, 201. ISBN0283995084.
