Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born 26 October 1942) is a retired English actor known for playing Cockneys, psychopaths, and gangsters. He has appeared in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Hook (1991), and Neverland (2011).

Early life

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Hoskins was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, the son of Elsie Lillian (née Hopkins), a cook and nursery school teacher, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., a bookkeeper and truck driver. One of Hoskins' grandmothers was a Romani of the British Romanis. From the age of two weeks old, he was raised in Finsbury Park, London. Hoskins left school when he was 15 with a single O-Level and worked as a porter, lorry-driver and window cleaner. He worked on a three-year accountancy course but dropped out.

Career

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Hoskins' 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. 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' 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". 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 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.

Hoskins appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for which he received a second Golden Globe nomination. Some of Hoskins' 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.

Hoskins has also directed two films, both of which he starred in; The Raggedy Rawney (1988) and Rainbow (1996). 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 an interview with The Guardian, Hoskins spoke of his regret at appearing in the film Super Mario Bros.. On 8 August 2012, Hoskins announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2011.

Personal life

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Hoskins' father was a communist and brought up Hoskins as an atheist, but Hoskins now describes himself as an agnostic. In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time in kibbutz Zikim in Israel. In an 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.'" When asked which individual he most despised, Hoskins named Tony Blair and claimed 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.

Filmography

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1972    Up the Front
1973    The National Health
1975    Royal Flash
1975    Inserts
1979    Zulu Dawn
1979    Big Jim and the Figaro Club
1980    The Long Good Friday
1982    Pink Floyd The Wall
1983    The Honorary Consul
1984    Lassiter
1984    The Cotton Club
1985    The Woman Who Married Clark Gable
1985    The Dunera Boys
1985    Brazil
1986    Sweet Liberty
1986    Mona Lisa
1987    A Prayer for the Dying
1987    The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
1988    Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1988    The Raggedy Rawney
1990    Heart Condition
1990    Mermaids
1991    The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish
1991    Shattered
1991    Hook
1991    The Inner Circle
1992    Passed Away
1992    Blue Ice
1993    Super Mario Bros.
1993    The Big Freeze
1995    Nixon
1995    Balto
1996    Rainbow
1996    The Secret Agent
1996    Michael
1997    Twenty Four Seven
1997    Spiceworld
1998    Cousin Bette
1999    Let the Good Times Roll
1999    Parting Shots
1999    Captain Jack
1999    Felicia's Journey
1999    A Room for Romeo Brass
1999    The White River Kid
1999    David Copperfield
2000    American Virgin
2001    Enemy at the Gates
2001    Last Orders
2002    Where Eskimos Live
2002    Maid in Manhattan
2003    The Sleeping Dictionary
2003    Den of Lions
2004    Vanity Fair
2004    Beyond the Sea
2005    Unleashed
2005    Son of the Mask
2005    Mrs Henderson Presents
2005    Stay
2006    Paris, je t'aime
2006    The Wind in the Willows
2006    Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
2006    Hollywoodland
2007    Sparkle
2007    Outlaw
2007    Ruby Blue
2007    Go Go Tales
2008    Doomsday
2009    A Christmas Carol
2010    Made in Dagenham
2011    Outside Bet
2012    Snow White & the Huntsman

Izvor: Wikipedia

Bob Hoskins napušta glumu

Britanski glumac saopštio je da boluje od Parkinsonove bolesti i da se povlači iz sveta filma.

Bob Hoskins (69) neće više snimati filmove, jer boluje od Parkinsonove bolesti, degenerativnog poremećaja nervnog sistema koji otežava kretanje i vremenom može da dovede do demencije. Od ovog poremećaja boluju i glumac Majkl Džej Foks i bokser Muhamed Ali.

"Bob se zahvaljuje svim divnim ljudima sa kojima je radio, sa optimizmom gleda na budućnost sa porodicom u penziji, i moli javnost za poštovanje njihove privatnosti", saopštio je njegov agent.

Hoskins je karijeru počeo šezdesetih nakon što ga je agent otkrio u pabu, i glumio je u filmovima "Ko je smestio Zeki Rodžeru", "Kuka", "Mona Liza", "Nedođija", "Sirene", kao i nedavno predstavljenom "Snežana i Lovac".

Nominovan je za Oskara za film "Mona Liza", kao i za tri Zlatna globusa, od kojih je jedini osvojio za isti film.

Izvor: Mondo