Bob Hoskins
Hoskins during the filming of Ruby Blue (2007)
Born	(1942-10-26) 26 October 1942 (age 69) Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England, UK
Occupation	Actor and Film director
Years active	1972–present
Spouse	Jane Livesey (1967–1978; divorced; 2 children) Linda Banwell (1982–present; 2 children)

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born 26 October 1942) is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), and Mona Lisa (1986). He has since played lighter roles in family films, such as Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Smee in both Hook (1991) and Neverland (2011).

Early life[link]

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] One of Hoskins's grandmothers was a Romani of the British Romanis.^[3] From the age of two weeks old he was raised in Finsbury Park, in north London.^[4] His father, a Communist, brought up Hoskins as an atheist, and he now describes himself as an agnostic.^[5] In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time in kibbutz Zikim in Israel.^[6][7] In a recent interview, when asked what he owed his parents, he said, "Confidence. My mum used to say to me, 'If somebody doesn't like you, fuck 'em, they've got bad taste.'"^[8]

Career[link]

Hoskins's acting career started in London in the late 1960s when he was sitting in a pub enjoying a beer when someone came up to him and told him to go upstairs to audition for a play, which he did, and landed the role.^[9] His first major television role was in On the Move (1978), an educational series intended to tackle adult illiteracy, in which he played Alf, a removal man who had problems reading and writing. In the same year, he came to wider attention in the original BBC version of Dennis Potter's drama Pennies from Heaven as sheet music salesman Arthur Parker. Later, he played Iago in Jonathan Miller's BBC Television Shakespeare production of Othello.

Hoskins's 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, Best Actor Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards and 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 recognising it, showed Hoskins the video game on the Nintendo video game console. In a 2007 interview, he revealed that despite getting praised for his performance on the film, he was extremely unhappy with the film and was greatly angered by his experiences making it, referring to it 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 had a small role as a rock band's manager in the Pink Floyd film The Wall. 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 £20,000 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.^[10]

Hoskins appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for which he received a second Golden Globe nomination. Some of Hoskins's other notable appearances include playing opposite Cher in Mermaids (1990), boatswain Smee to Captain Hook in Hook (1991), and as the same character in Neverland (2011), and Uncle Bart, the psychopathic and violent "owner" of Jet Li in Unleashed aka Danny The Dog. He has also performed in several television productions for the BBC, including Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven, Flickers, David Copperfield as Wilkins Micawber (1999), and The 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.

In 2009, Hoskins made a return to British television in Jimmy McGovern's drama serial The Street, where he played a publican who stands up to a local gangster. For this role he received his first Emmy when he won Best Actor at the 2010 International Emmys.

In a recent interview for The Guardian, Hoskins spoke of his regret at appearing in the film Super Mario Bros., which at the time received mixed reviews. When asked which individual he most despised, Hoskins said former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, stating that "he's done even more damage than Thatcher". Hoskins also made light of his similarities with film actor Danny DeVito, who he joked would play him in a film about his life.^[8]

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

• Villains (1972)
• Play for Today - "The Bankrupt" - (1972) - Taxi driver
• Crown Court (1973)
• New Scotland Yard (1973) – Eddie Wharton
• Softly, Softly: Taskforce (1973) (TV) – Parker
• Play for Today - "Her Majesty's Pleasure " - (1973) - Woodbine
• Shoulder to Shoulder (1974) – Jack Dunn
• Thick as Thieves (1974) – Dobbs
• Play for Today - "Schmoedipus" - (1974) - Blake
• Thriller (1976) – Sammy Draper
• The Crezz (1976) – Det. Sgt. Marble
• Van der Valk (1977) – Johnny Palmer
• Rock Follies of '77 (1977) – Johnny Britten
• On the Move (1978) – Alf
• Pennies from Heaven (1978) – Arthur Parker
• Of Mycenae and Men (1979) – Mr. Taramasalatopoulos
• Mussolini and I (1985) – Benito Mussolini
• The Changeling (1994) – De Flores
• World War II - When Lions Roared (1994) – Winston Churchill
• Tales from the Crypt (1996)
• Saturday Night Live (1998) – Captain Kidd
• Noriega: God's Favorite (2000) – Manuel Noriega
• Don Quixote (2000) – Sancho Panza
• The Lost World (2001) – Prof. George Challenger
• Frasier (2003) – Coach Fuller
• The Good Pope: Pope John XXIII (2003) – Angelo Roncalli/Pope John XXIII
• The Englishman's Boy (2008) – Damon Ira Chance
• Pinocchio (2008) – Geppetto
• The Street (2009) – Paddy Gargan
• Neverland (2011) – Smee

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bob Hoskins

• Bob Hoskins at the Internet Movie Database
• Bob Hoskins at AllRovi