Name: Ian Holm, star of Lord of the Rings, Alien and Chariots of Fire, dies aged 88
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Ian Holm, star of Lord of the Rings, Alien and Chariots of Fire, dies aged 88

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This article is more than 2 years oldThis article is more than 2 years oldThe versatile actor went from the RSC and Harold Pinter to international movie stardom with roles as the hobbit Bilbo Baggins and an android in AlienLast modified on Fri 19 Jun 2020 16.20 EDTIan Holm, the versatile actor who played everything from androids to hobbits via and King Lear, has died in London aged 88, his agent confirmed to the Guardian.“It is with great sadness that the actor Sir CBE passed away this morning at the age of 88,” they said. “He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer,” adding that his illness was Parkinson’s related. “Charming, kind and ferociously talented, we will miss him hugely.”Holm’s final days were in a series of pastel portraits by his wife, Sophie de Stempel.Holm, who won a Bafta and was nominated for an Oscar for his role as maverick athletics coach Sam Mussabini in the 1981 film , may have looked destined for a career in colourful supporting roles on screen – especially after quitting the theatre in 1976 after a severe case of stage fright – but he found a new generation of admirers after being cast as Bilbo Baggins in the blockbusting .Earlier this month, he expressed his sadness that he was unable to participate in a virtual reunion for the films, : “I am sorry to not see you in person, I miss you all and hope your adventures have taken you to many places, I am in lockdown in my hobbit home, or holm.”Holm was born in 1931 in Essex, where his father was superintendent of the West Ham Corporation psychiatric hospital; he later described his childhood there as “a pretty idyllic existence”. Falling in love with acting at an early age, he went from Rada in London to the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford, staying on to become part of the on its foundation in 1960.Holm became a leading figure at the RSC, winning an Evening Standard best actor award for Henry V in 1965, part of the seminal Wars of the Roses cycle put together by Peter Hall and John Barton. He also earned plaudits for his work with Pinter, playing Lenny in the premiere production of The Homecoming (which won him a Tony award after its transfer to Broadway) and then in the 1973 film version, directed by Hall. Not least of all from Pinter himself, who is reported to have said of Holm: Holm underwent severe stage fright, which he described as “a sort of breakdown” during a performance of The Iceman Cometh in 1976, which he described as “”. Having abandoned the theatre, Holm developed his screen-acting career, which had hitherto largely been confined to regular but sporadic parts in British films such as The Bofors Gun, Oh! What a Lovely War and Young Winston. Seen as a safe pair of hands, his casting as the android Ash in the Ridley Scott-directed gave him hitherto undreamed-of international exposure. This role was followed up by his turn as Mussabini, the ostracised running coach of sprinter Harold Abrahams in .After his best supporting actor nomination for Chariots of Fire in 1982 (which he lost to John Giegud for Arthur), Holm was now a bona fide acting grandee, though one whose eccentric-seeming, pugnacious qualities were best suited for memorable supporting parts. He played Napoleon in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, and hapless Mr Kurtzmann in the same director’s ; other highlights included Lewis Carroll in the Dennis Potter-scripted Alice fantasy Dreamchild, Dr Willis in , and Father Cornelius in Luc Besson’s sci-fi epic . However, he did find a leading role in Atom Egoyan’s adaptation of Russell Banks’s , released in 1997, playing the smooth-talking lawyer who persuades grieving parents to launch a class-action suit after several children are killed in a bus crash.Holm returned to Shakespeare in 1997, in the Richard Eyre-directed King Lear at the National Theatre in London, and was knighted a year later for “services to drama”. Having played Frodo Baggins in a 1981 radio adaptation of Lord of the Rings, Holm was cast as Bilbo in Peter Jackson’s mammoth three-part screen adaptation, with filming on beginning in 1999. Bilbo did not appear in The Two Towers, but Holm returned for the final part, , as well as the and instalments of the Hobbit trilogy, which were released in 2012 and 2014 respectively.In between the two sets of Tolkien adaptations, Holm developed an unexpected reputation as a lothario, after the publication of his autobiography in 2004. Hailed by the Daily Mail as “Lord of the Flings”, he candidly chronicled his serial marriages and extramarital affairs. He is survived by his fourth wife, de Stempel, and five children from previous relationships, as well as his third wife, the actor Penelope Wilton.

This article is more than 2 years oldThis article is more than 2 years oldThe versatile actor went from the RSC and Harold Pinter to international movie stardom with roles as the hobbit Bilbo Baggins and an android in AlienLast modified on Fri 19 Jun 2020 16.20 EDTIan Holm, the versatile actor who played everything from androids to hobbits via and King Lear, has died in London aged 88, his agent confirmed to the Guardian.“It is with great sadness that the actor Sir CBE passed away this morning at the age of 88,” they said. “He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer,” adding...

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Andrew Pulver

TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and Guardian Unlimited, is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian and The Observer, as well as a substantial body of web-only work produced by its own staff, including a rolling news service.

Ian Holm, star of Lord of the Rings, Alien and Chariots of Fire, dies aged 88

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