The Show Place

Bob Hoskins, Actor Who Combined Charm and Menace, Dies at 71



Bob Hoskins, the bullet-shaped British film star who brought a singular mix of charm, menace and cockney accent to a variety of roles, including the bemused live-action hero of the largely animated “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” has died. He was 71.

A spokeswoman, Clair Dobbs, released a statement by his family on Wednesday saying that he had died in a hospital, where he had been treated for pneumonia. No other details were given. A much-honored, Oscar-nominated actor, Mr. Hoskins had announced his retirement in August 2012 after learning he had Parkinson’s disease.

Mr. Hoskins, who had virtually stumbled into acting, found early acclaim as the kind of ruthless British gangster he played in 1980 in his startling breakthrough feature, “The Long Good Friday,” and later in Neil Jordan’s 1986 film “Mona Lisa,” which earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. But his filmography also included more playful roles. He was the pirate Smee in two variations of “Peter Pan” — Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” in 1991 and the 2011 British television production “Neverland.” He played Cher’s unlikely love match in “Mermaids” (1990). And he voiced Charles Dickens’s Old Fezziwig in the 2009 animated version of “A Christmas Carol,” directed by Robert Zemeckis.