Pete Postlethwaite, OBE
At the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh, 2005
Born	Peter William Postlethwaite (1946-02-07)7 February 1946 Warrington, Cheshire, England, UK
Died	2 January 2011(2011-01-02) (aged 64) Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK
Cause of death	Pancreatic cancer
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1975–2011
Spouse	Jacqueline Morrish (m. 2003–2011, his death)

Peter William "Pete" Postlethwaite, OBE, ( /ˈpɒsəlθweɪt/; 7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011)^[1][2] was an English stage, film and television actor.

After minor television appearances including in The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He played a mysterious lawyer, Mr. Kobayashi, in The Usual Suspects, and he appeared in Alien 3, In the Name of the Father, Amistad, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, The Age of Stupid, Inception, The Town, Romeo + Juliet and Æon Flux. In television, Postlethwaite's most notable performance was as the villain Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in the Sharpe television series and television films opposite actor Sean Bean's character of Richard Sharpe.

Postlethwaite was born in Warrington, Lancashire, England in 1946. He trained as a teacher and taught drama before training as an actor. Steven Spielberg called Postlethwaite "the best actor in the world" after working with him on The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in In the Name of the Father in 1993, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours list. He died of pancreatic cancer on 2 January 2011.

Early life[link]

Postlethwaite was born in Warrington in Lancashire (now part of Cheshire) on 16 February 1946. He was the fourth and youngest child of William (1913–1988) and Mary Postlethwaite (née Lawless; 1913–2000). He was brought up in a working class Roman Catholic family^[3] with two sisters, Anne and Patricia, and a brother, Michael.^[4] He trained as a teacher at St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill and taught drama at Loreto College, Manchester, before training as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Career[link]

Postlethwaite started his career at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher and Julie Walters. Postlethwaite and Walters had an intimate relationship during the latter half of the 1970s.^[5] He was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and other acting companies.

On 13 January 1981, he took the leading role in a BBC TV black comedy by Alan Bleasdale, The Muscle Market, which was a spin-off from Boys from the Blackstuff; it was part of the Play for Today series and also featured Alison Steadman.

After other early appearances in small parts for television programmes such as The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first film success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in In the Name of the Father in 1993. He is well known for his role as mysterious lawyer Mr. Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. He also made appearances in several successful films, including Alien 3, Amistad, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, Inception, and as Friar Lawrence in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.

In 2003, he was both the physical and vocal actor for the villain Deeth in Zixx: Level One, a Canadian TV series created by IDT Entertainment. The same year, he went to Australia and New Zealand, touring a 90-minute one-man play called Scaramouche Jones where he played a clown trying to find out why he is who he is before he dies at midnight, receiving a nomination for the TMA Award for Best Actor and winning the Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Solo Performance.^[6] This was directed by Rupert Goold, who would also direct his Lear in 2008, in which Postlethwaite played every character. As well as Australia, the play toured Canada, New Zealand and the UK to great acclaim.^[7]

In the 2004 book The Art of Discworld, Terry Pratchett said that he had always imagined Sam Vimes as 'a younger, slightly bulkier version of Pete Postlethwaite'.^[8]

Steven Spielberg called Postlethwaite "the best actor in the world" after working with him on the The Lost World: Jurassic Park,^[9] to which Postlethwaite quipped: "I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'The thing about Pete is that he thinks he's the best actor in the world.'"^[10]