Actor Bob Hoskins Dead at 71

Actor Bob Hoskins has died at the age of 71, following a bout of pneumonia, according to his agent. 

Hoskins, who was retired when he passed away, was famed for his roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Hook (1991), Nixon (1995), and more recently, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012).

He was born in Bury St Edmunds in West Suffolk in England, and had four children via two marriages.

Raised by his communist father as an atheist, he left school at 15, worked as a porter, lorry driver and window cleaner. In 1967, Hoskins spent a short period of time volunteering in a kibbutz in Zikim in Israel before making the transition into acting in 1969.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2011, Hoskins said the living person he despised most was former prime minister Tony Blair, who had “done even more damage than Thatcher”. 

The BBC reports that the “he was nominated for a best actor Oscar in 1987 for crime drama Mona Lisa opposite Sir Michael Caine and Robbie Coltrane. He announced he was retiring from acting in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.”