- published: 01 May 2014
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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).
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. One of Hoskins's grandmothers was a Romani of the British Romanis. From the age of two weeks old he was raised in Finsbury Park, in north London. His father, a Communist, brought up Hoskins as an atheist, and he now describes himself as an agnostic. In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time in kibbutz Zikim in Israel. 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.'"