Bob Hoskins - Biography - IMDb Bob Hoskins Biography Showing all 81 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (3) | Trivia (42) | Personal Quotes (28) Overview (5) 5' 6" (1.68 m) Mini Bio (1) Bob Hoskins was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where his mother was living after being evacuated as a result of the heavy bombings. He is the son of Elsie Lillian (Hopkins), a nursery school teacher and cook, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., who drove a lorry and worked as a bookkeeper. Growing up, Hoskins received only limited education and he left school at 15, but with a passion for language and literature instilled by his former English teacher. A regular theatre-goer, Hoskins dreamed of starring on stage, but before he could do so he had to work odd jobs for a long time to make ends meet.

His acting career started out more by accident than by design, when he accompanied a friend to watch some auditions, only to be confused for one of the people auditioning, getting a script pushed into his hands with the message "You're next". He got the part and acquired an agent. After some stage success, he expanded to television with roles in television series such as Villains (1972) and Thick as Thieves (1974). In the mid-'70s, he started his film career, standing out when he performed alongside Richard Dreyfuss in John Byrum 's Inserts (1975) and in a smaller part in Richard Lester 's Royal Flash (1975). Hoskins broke through in 1978 in Dennis Potter 's mini TV series, Pennies from Heaven (1978), playing "Arthur Parker", the doomed salesman. After this, a string of high-profile and successful films followed, starting with his true major movie debut in 1980's The Long Good Friday (1980) as the ultimately doomed "Harold Shand".

This was followed by such works as The Cotton Club (1984), Mona Lisa (1986), which won him an Oscar nomination as well as a BAFTA award, Cannes Film Festival and Golden Globe), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (Golden Globe nomination), Mermaids (1990), Hook (1991), Nixon (1995), Felicia's Journey (1999) and Enemy at the Gates (2001). Hoskins always carefully balanced the riches of Hollywood with the labor of independent film, though leaned more towards the latter than the former. He worked at smaller projects such as Shane Meadows ' debut 24 7: Twenty Four Seven (1997), in which he starred as "Allen Darcy". Besides this, he found time to direct, write and star in The Raggedy Rawney (1988), as well as direct and star in Rainbow (1995), and contributing to HBO's Tales from the Crypt (1989) and Tube Tales (1999). Suffering from Parkinson's disease in later years, Hoskins died of pneumonia at age 71 in a London hospital.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Thomas Beekers Spouse (2) (1982 - 29 April 2014) (his death) (2 children) Jane Livesey Gravelly voice and strong cockney accent. Frequently played grouchy, short-tempered characters Short stature Trivia (42) Ranked #97 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997] Father of Rosa Hoskins (born 1983) and Jack Hoskins (born 1986) with Linda Banwell. Father of Alex Hoskins (born 1968) and Sarah Hoskins (born 1972) with Jane Livesey. Claimed to never have taken an acting lesson in his life and believes in the talent to be "all natural". Dropping out of school at age 15, he worked odd jobs, including a fire eater in a circus. He was Brian De Palma 's second choice for the role of Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987) if Robert De Niro was not available.

Hoskins was reportedly given a six-figure paycheck by De Palma for "being a great standby". Adopted an American accent for the role of Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Described himself as "Five-foot-six and cubic". He once described his face as looking like squashed cabbage. His grandmother was a Romani (Gypsy). His film, The Raggedy Rawney (1988), was based on stories his grandmother used to tell him. He was awarded the 1982 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards (Drama Theatre Award) for Best Actor of 1981 for his performance in "Guys and Dolls" and "True West". Spent several seasons with the Royal National Theatre and the Old Vic Theatre in London, where his credits included everything from a range of Shakespeare to Chechov to Shaw. Attended and graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. Was considered for the role of Senator Ralph Owen Brewster in The Aviator (2004), before Alan Alda was cast. Replaced Danny DeVito as Mario Mario in Super Mario Bros. (1993).

In his earlier years before acting, he wound up looking after camels in Syria and later packing fruit on a kibbutz in Israel, among many other odd jobs. According to Barry Letts in Beginning the End: Making 'The Time Warrior' (2007), Hoskins was his first choice for the role of Irongron in Doctor Who: The Time Warrior: Part One (1973). Hoskins was not available to take the part but recommended David Daker , who was cast instead. He was friends with actor/gangster John Bindon and gave a character reference at his Old Bailey murder trial. Bindon was acquitted. The first record he bought was "Your Eyes Are the Eyes of a Woman in Love" by Frankie Laine . He was a huge fan of jazz music and his favorite albums include "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis and "Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross!". He played the role of Smee, Captain Hook's right hand man, in both Hook (1991) and Neverland (2011).

(August 8, 2012) Announced his retirement from acting after the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in Autumn 2011. All the lines of the character Wermit in the film In Search of La Che (2011) are all quotes of Bob Hoskins. Spent a short period of time volunteering at Kibbutz Zikim in Israel when he was age 25. Worked as a porter, lorry driver and window cleaner before he discovered acting. Attempted a three-year accounting course, but dropped out. Did not start acting until he was 26 years old. His acting career began in 1969 at the Unity Theatre. One evening, he was waiting in the Unity Theatre bar for his friend, the actor Roger Frost, to finish an audition. Whilst drinking at the bar, he was given a script and told "You're next.". Was the original choice to play Buster Edwards in Buster (1988), but the filmmakers decided the role of a cockney villain was too close to roles he had played before in The Long Good Friday (1980) and Mona Lisa (1986), so singer Phil Collins was cast instead.

Was the only child of a bookkeeper and nursery school teacher. Bob's body was cremated. His urn was given to his wife, Linda. He was considered for the role of The Penguin in Batman Returns (1992) that went to Danny DeVito . He was considered for the role of Dr. Weeks in American Friends (1991) that went to Alun Armstrong . He was considered for the role of Lt. Senna in Homicide (1991) that went to Vincent Guastaferro . He was considered for the role of Horace Slughorn in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) that went to Jim Broadbent . He was considered for the role of Salvatore Maroni in The Dark Knight (2008) that went to Eric Roberts . His father was a communist and brought up Hoskins to be an atheist. In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time volunteering in kibbutz Zikim in Israel, and also herded camels in Syria. His favourite book was "Mr Norris Changes Trains", by Christopher Isherwood .

He was considered for the role of Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 (2004) that went to Alfred Molina . In 1983, Hoskins' voice was used in an advert for Weetabix and during the late 1980s and early 1990s, he appeared in advertising for the recently privatized companies of British Gas and British Telecom (now BT Group). He was offered the role of Jack Ruby in Ruby (1992), but he was busy working on Hook (1991) and had to turn it down. It would have been his third collaboration with John MacKenzie after The Long Good Friday (1980) and Beyond the Limit (1983). He was considered for the role of Leo Lemke in The Butcher's Wife (1991) that went to George Dzundza . Personal Quotes (28) On getting his first role: I was three parts pissed. We were going to a party. And this bloke comes around and says: "Right. You're next. Have you seen the script?" And I got the leading part.

[in 1988] My life has taken off - my life, my career - everything. I can honestly say I've never been happier. I'm walking around thinking any minute now, 25 tons of horseshit is going to fall on my head. Most dictators were short, fat, middle-aged and hairless. Besides Danny DeVito , there's only me to play them. When you get to my age, what you want is the cameo. You get paid a lot of money. You fly in for a couple of weeks. Everybody treats you like the crown jewels. It's all great and if the film turns out to be a load of shit, nobody blames you. My own mum wouldn't call me pretty. I've watched films and even forgotten I'm in them. You don't end up with a face like this if you're hard, do ya? This comes from having too much mouth and nothing to back it up with. The nose has been broken so many times. You reach a point where the cameo is the governor.

You go in there for a couple of weeks, you're paid a lot of money, everybody treats you like the crown jewels, you're in and out, and if the film's a load of shit, nobody blames you, y'knowwhadimean. It's wonderful. The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Bros. (1993). It was a f**kin' nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks, their own agent told them to get off the set! F**kin' nightmare. F**kin' idiots. [on Robert De Niro ] De Niro has only shown me kindness. He's a real friend. He's helped me shop for my wife's and my kids' Christmas presents. He's invited me round to meet his granny and he's come to my house for a pot-luck dinner. That really knocked my wife out. I think she was finally impressed with me. [on director Francis Ford Coppola ] Coppola couldn't piss in a pot. [on Neil Jordan ] I think Neil is a magician. And I believe in magic.

[on the acting profession] I came into this business uneducated, dyslexic, 5ft 6in, cubic, with a face like a squashed cabbage and they welcomed me with open arms. I realized one day that men are emotional cripples. We can't express ourselves emotionally, we can only do it with anger and humor. Emotional stability and expression comes from women. When they have babies they say "hello, you're welcome" and they mean it. It is an emotional honesty. [on Method acting] Method is a load of bollocks. Acting is a lark but I'm trying to work less. They say: "Bob I know you're trying to retire but we've got a little swan song here which is the business..." and I get talked into it. The more you don't want to work, the more work you get. I want to be at home with the wife, but she doesn't want me to retire, she wants me out of the house. Family's all I've got. I've got money, yeah, but it's my family that I care about. It's funny, going in a pub now and there's no smoke.

It may be healthier but it doesn't feel right. Even the beer tastes different. [in his last-ever interview in August 2012] My greatest pleasure in life is a completely appointment-less day with nothing to do. It means I can read a book, listen to the radio and do exactly as I wish. If you are going to do a film properly you have to give yourself completely to it. You can't slip in and slip out again. You give it the business. My diary now is free, completely free. That's the way I like it. I only do what I want to do. There was a time when people said, "You've got to speak like you don't, walk like you don't, be like you aren't." I said, "Ere, 'ang on, who am I? I'd be lost if I did that. I'd be disappearing. I'd be ectoplasm!". [on the best kiss of his life] With Natasha Richardson , God bless her, on The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish (1991). She got hold of me and kissed me like I've never been kissed before. I was gobsmacked.

[on what song he would like played at his funeral] Play what you like, I won't be there. [asked why he did a much-maligned series of adverts for British Telecom] For 500,000 reasons, all of them with the Queen's head on. [on moving in middle-class circles] There are four types of reaction. They lock up the silver. They talk to you slowly like you're an idiot. They think Hamlet in a cockney accent is the funniest thing in the world. Or they tell you most of their friends are working class and some are even black. (On what he owes his parents) Confidence. My mum used to say to me, "If somebody doesn't like you, fuck 'em, they've got bad taste." (On which living person he despises the most) Tony Blair - he's done even more damage than Thatcher. (On his earliest memory) The face of a cat looking into my cot at my home in Finsbury Park. (On the most valuable lesson life has taught him) It's your life, live it your way. See also Bob Hoskins · Interview · The A.V.

Club Share Tweet "You get to my fucking age, and when you realize you still have street cred and can still run with a gang, that's great!" Bob Hoskins is best known in America as the non-cartoon detective in 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but he has had a remarkably diverse acting career. Hoskins has played characters ranging from Smee the Pirate (in Steven Spielberg's Hook) to J. Edgar Hoover (in Oliver Stone's Nixon) to Iago (in the BBC production of Othello), and he was nominated for an Academy Award for Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa. That role ultimately led Hoskins to his new film TwentyFourSeven, a blue-collar boxing movie strikingly directed by newcomer Shane Meadows. For his powerful role as a boxing coach and proxy father figure, Hoskins won Best Actor at the European Film Awards. The Onion recently spoke to Hoskins about circus work, accents, his street cred, and The Spice Girls. The Onion: Is it true that you used to breathe fire in the circus? Bob Hoskins: Yeah!

A friend of mine who was working with a circus group saw me and asked, you know, "Do you want to do a season in the circus?" So I said, "Yeah, I'll try that." I learned to do a fire act; I was a clown and a ringmaster, and I used to do an escape act, as well. O: Were these skills that you could later use? BH: Well, fire-eating never really came in much. O: I don't think American audiences can distinguish among all the different English dialects. How easy is it to match the subtleties of different regional accents? BH: Imagine the United States with all its different accents and then crush it down to the size of England, and that's about the situation. You've got just as many accents [in the U.S.], but the territory is bigger. All the accents that you've got, we've got. You've got to remember that most of your accents came from us in the first place. O: But was it difficult to adopt the Midlands accent? BH: What's difficult is that Nottingham is a town with people from all over, a moving populationa lot of project housing and stuff like that.

When I got there, I thought I'd try to get a Nottingham accent together, but then everyone I met had a different accent! I went into a pub, and this old guy swore to me that he had been born in Nottingham and his was a true Nottingham accentand if I treated him to a few drinks, he would teach me his accent. Well, he used to go home drunk every night, and I still don't know if he came from Nottingham or not. O: Are there stereotypes attached to the different accents? BH: Yeah, just like [the U.S.], where there's the stereotypical New York taxi driver, the stereotypical Texan, the Alabama redneck. They're all stereotypes, but how many people do you know who actually fit these stereotypes? Not many. I mean, you can have a redneck who has some brains, you know? O: Do you think TwentyFourSeven is a fair representation of England under Thatcher? Was it really as bleak as Shane Meadows presents it? BH: It was bleaker. At least in the film, there's hope. At least those kids get something together and make lives for themselves. You've got your own problems here; you can see where it is.

When all the public services run down, it takes time to recover. That fucking "me" generation... We're not in this world just to take from it; we're here to add to it, as well. O: What was it like to learn that Meadows had written his script with you in mind? BH: Oh, shit! When I got the script, I was just astonished. This kid, from his backgroundand he was just 21 when he wrote ithad this amount of compassion and insight and poetry. And then I met him, and he was five-foot-six with a shaved head! I thought, "Hey, hey, that's my boy!" [Laughs.] Another cueball! O: I understand a lot of the cast was made up of Meadows' old friends. How hard was it to ingratiate yourself into his crew? BH: I was terrified! There was no one over 25. I thought, "Jesus Christ, they're going to eat me alive!" But they didn't. I went in there and I was amazed. They weren't impressed with me, and they didn't try to impress me. They didn't expect me to lead, and they didn't ask me to follow.

I was just one of the chaps. I tell you, you get to my fucking age, and when you realize you still have street cred and can still run with a gang, that's great! O: Do you think they learned anything from working with you? BH: I don't know, because what you see on the screen is what they are off the screen. That's them. There was no chance for fancy footwork or bullshit acting. So like I said, no one was coming to me, you know? If I tried to give them advice, they would have been, like, "Whoa, what the fuck's he doing?" O: There seems to be a wave of films studying the British working class. Why do you think these life-on-the-dole movies are suddenly popping up? BH: I think English culture had been suppressed for so long. The art and drama in England, Thatcher would go out of her way to cheat. Now it's changed; we've got a new government... And I'm not saying this government is helping, but it isn't getting in the way.

The first thing filmmakers are saying [under this new system] is, "Fuck you, we're unemployed!" And that explains this spate of movies. And when they all settle down, hopefully we won't go back to period pictures. O: How did you end up in Spiceworld? BH: My daughter answered the phone and said, "Dad, you're in The Spice Girls' movie!" What do you mean I'm in the fucking Spice Girls movie? There was no way I could turn it down [because of my daughter], but when I met them, they were great. I had a great time. Bob Hoskins: 1942-2014 | Tea Time Tidbits | MPT Afternoon Tea April 29, 2014 It is with great sadness that we update this Tea Time Tidbit that Heather wrote in 2012 with the news that Bob Hoskins has died at the age of 71, after a bout with pneumonia. Week of August 20, 2012: Bob Hoskins retires Bob Hoskins. Actor Bob Hoskins recently announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

The 1978 Pennies from Heaven drama series, in which Hoskins appeared as song sheet salesman, Arthur Parker, is still for me one of the all-time great British television imports. Hoskins, whose grandmother was a Romany gypsy, was born Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. on October 26, 1942, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. His mother Elsie, a nursery school cook, had been evacuated there after the heavy bombings in London. Two weeks after Hoskins was born, they returned to Finsbury Park in London to rejoin his father Robert who was first a van driver, then a bookkeeper at a large furniture removals company. Life for the young Hoskins was that of a typical working class Londoner. He lived with his parents in a one-bedroom bathroomless flat, where his bed was a folding camp-bed in the front room. Living in North London not only gave a Hoskins the accent he'd forever be associated with, but it also gave him his looks. A knife wound he got as a cocky teen for mouthing off at some of the local hard core lads, for instance, left him with a hollow between the eyes.

During another fight an attacker stuck a blade into his stomach. In The Long Good Friday with Helen Mirran. "That's what happened back then," said Hoskins many years later, "You got through it. You survived." At school Hoskins had been labeled "stupid" by teachers who failed to recognize his dyslexia, so he left school when he was fifteen and despite the temptations of the glamour of London's gangland, he resisted the lures of getting rich quick through crime. This despite once being taken to meet the city's underworld mobsters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray who lived at their mother's council flat near Hoskins' home. Instead Hoskins took a variety of jobs, including being trainee accountant, a Covent Garden market porter, a window cleaner, a steeplejack and a sailor. Once in the mid-sixties he even set off to a kibbutz in Israel where he spent four months farming bananas. He also worked as a camel herder in Syria, a crewman in the Norwegian merchant navy and a circus fire-eater. Pennies from Heaven.

About the only thing Hoskins didn't attempt was setting foot in a theatre school and he was always proud to boast that he never took one single acting lesson in his life. He had, however, always harbored a dream of being an actor and the chance came completely by accident one night when he was in a pub with a friend who was waiting to audition for a role with a local theatre group. By mistake, Hoskins was handed a script and told "you're next". His impromptu audition was good enough to get him the job. Not long after, Hoskins got himself an agent and after a few more stage roles, he started to get cast in television and films. By the mid-1970s Hoskins was drawing a lot of attention with his television roles as Alf in On the Move, an educational series about a removal man who had problems reading and writing, and as Arthur Parker in Dennis Potter's musical drama Pennies from Heaven. Hoskins was 36, when he made the award winning controversial BBC series, which he quickly followed up with his first major film role; gangster Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday, which also starred Helen Mirran.

But while Hoskins career might have been on the rise, his personal life was in turmoil. With daughter, Rosa. On his return from the Kibbutz in Israel in the mid-60s, Hoskins had married a schoolteacher, Jane Livesey, but the marriage was not a happy one. "It was an awful relationship", said Hoskins, "I wasn't mature enough for marriage. I married her because she had my son. We shouldn't have been together. I was a romantic and she was an intellectual." Along with Alex, who was born in 1968, the couple also had a daughter, Sarah, who was born in 1972. The end came after Hoskins confessed to an affair he'd had in South Africa while making the film Zulu Dawn. The divorce was a bitter one. "It was the most awful time in my life", said Hoskins of the experience which he said "sent him off his rocker". Hoskins gives credit to psychotherapy for the eventual recovery from what was a nervous breakdown. With wife, Linda. Hoskins met his current wife, Linda on July 29, 1981; the day of Prince Charles's wedding to Diana.

As Hoskins remembered it, "I had made up this woman in my head and on the royal wedding day, when they kept the pubs open late, I walked into one place and there she was, Linda, sipping a G&T at the bar and I thought, "you are mine." He was so poor after his divorce from Jane, however, that he was living in his car, so he parked it in Linda's driveway in the hope she would invite him in. She did and now over 30 years and two children later the couple are still together. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit. With the success of his marriage to Linda and his Oscar-nominated role in the film Mona Lisa, Hoskins seemed to be back on track emotionally. He was then given the role of acting opposite cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The intensity of having to work in front of a blue screen every day gave Hoskins splitting headaches and disturbing dreams. "I'd wake up and keep hallucinating," he said. "I'd see weasels pulling people's hair. I thought I was going potty. I had trained myself to hallucinate and in the end it [messed] up my brain.

I would be sitting, talking normally and suddenly a weasel would creep out of the wall at me." As Smee in Hook. The stress of the role resulted in another breakdown and Hoskins was told by doctors not to work for five months. Ultimately he took a year off, something he could now afford to do as the film was hugely successful and Hoskins was now able to command seven-figure fees. Now a favorite with children, Hoskins played the romantic lead opposite Cher in Mermaids and was Mr. Smee to Dustin Hoffman's Captain Hook in Hook. Hoskin's latest film - and what he announced would be his last film role - was as a dwarf named Muir in the Hollywood adventure film Snow White and the Huntsman which starred Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth. Our thoughts go out to Mr. Hoskins and his family and thank him for the great body of work he produced over the years. To contact Heather: Bob Hoskins (1942 - 2014) - Find A Grave Memorial City of London Greater London, England Actor.

He will perhaps be best remembered for his Oscar nominated role as 'George' in the picture "Mona Lisa" (1987) and for playing 'Private Detective Eddie Valiant" in the animated-action film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988). Raised in North London, his father was a clerk, his mother was a cook, Bob was not keen on his studies and dropped out of school at the age of fifteen. He worked at numerous odd-jobs which included a fire-eater at a circus until his engaging personality provided opportunities for him to pursue acting as a career. He acquired experience in Shakespearean plays at regional theaters and launched his TV and film career during the early 1970s. Among one of Hoskins' early impressionable achievements was his playing of gangster 'Harold Shand' in the film "The Long Good Friday". (bio by: C.S.) Obituary: Bob Hoskins - BBC News BBC News Close share panel Image copyright PA Stockily built and adept at playing both light and heavy roles, Bob Hoskins became an international star of the cinema after a long career in the theatre.

Robert William Hoskins was also regarded as a quintessential Cockney, despite being born in 1942 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. His mother Elsie, a nursery school teacher, was evacuated there during the Blitz and returned to London with him shortly after his birth. Growing up in the Finsbury Park area of the capital, the young Bob battled dyslexia. He also got into literal battles with local toughs, one of whom left him with a knife wound in his stomach. "A common misperception of me is that I am a tough guy," he said in 2007. "You don't end up looking like me if you are a tough guy. I just have a big mouth with little to back it up." After school he started training as a commercial artist. But he gave up to take a variety of jobs, including Covent Garden porter, circus worker and deckhand in the Norwegian Merchant Navy. He became an actor by accident. Waiting for a friend in the bar of an amateur theatre in north London in 1966, he was handed a script and asked to read for a part.

The audition was a successful one and led to him working for five years in repertory theatre, where his roles ranged from Shakespeare to circus fire-eater. Hoskins joined the Royal Court Theatre in 1972, had a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in 1976 and enjoyed a successful run at the National Theatre, notably as Nathan Detroit in its 1981 revival of Guys and Dolls. Image caption The actor enjoyed success in Pennies from Heaven opposite Cheryl Campbell But his big break had come three years earlier on television, in Dennis Potter's BBC series Pennies from Heaven, in which he played a travelling sheet music salesman caught up in Broadway fantasies. The series became a cult favourite in the United States and established him there as a star, though he would later say the role of Arthur Parker had been "very painful" to play. Only 5ft 6in tall (1.68m) - he described himself as "a short, fat, middle-aged man with a broken nose and a bald head" - Hoskins was soon being forecast as a successor to Edward G Robinson and James Cagney.

I'm a short, fat, middle-aged man with a broken nose and a bald head. It's not really Sean Connery, is it? Bob Hoskins The connection was cemented by 1980 film The Long Good Friday, in which he played a ruthless London gangster with dreams of redeveloping the Docklands. Yet Hoskins almost missed out on one of his most memorable roles. When he was offered the part of the pugnacious Harold Shand he was afflicted with a tape worm, contracted while shooting a film in South Africa, that required a stay in hospital. His Hollywood career was further enhanced by The Cotton Club in 1984, though that role too might well have eluded his grasp. Speaking on Desert Island Discs in 1988, the actor recalled getting a phone call after midnight from a man introducing himself as the director Francis Ford Coppola. "I said 'This is Henry VIII and you've just woke my kids up - thanks very much' and I put the phone down," he revealed.

Hoskins won the best actor award at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival for Mona Lisa, in which he played an ex-convict hired to drive a high-class prostitute around London. The Neil Jordan drama would also win him a Bafta and saw him receive his only nomination for an Academy Award. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Hoskins' many stage roles included Bosola opposite Helen Mirren's Duchess of Malfi in 1981 Two years later, he was memorably cast by director Robert Zemeckis as a bumbling private detective in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Hoskins would later admit to being driven to distraction by the demands of working with a non-existent co-star - a cartoon rabbit added after his live-action scenes had been completed. "You have to learn to hallucinate," he told Desert Island Discs host Sue Lawley, revealing he found himself imagining animated characters for months afterwards.

"There were weasels and rabbits all over the place - I couldn't stop it." The years that followed that 1988 hit would see him take on a range of roles - a pirate in Steven Spielberg's Hook, one half of the Super Mario Bros, a serial killer in Felicia's Journey and a cameo as himself in the Spice Girls film Spice World. He also took up directing, first in 1988 with The Raggedy Rawney and again in 1995 with family film Rainbow, and became synonymous with the phrase "It's good to talk" after appearing in a British Telecom ad campaign. Hoskins was offered elocution lessons early in his acting career but chose to retain his recognisable London accent. "If I'm going to present something as real, I have to cling on some reality myself," he explained. His distinctive manner of speaking did not stop him being cast as such famous figures as Benito Mussolini, Nikita Khrushchev and FBI boss J Edgar Hoover.

Image copyright PA Image caption Hoskins had four children, two from his first marriage and two with second wife Linda (pictured) Yet, the opportunity to play Al Capone in Brian De Palma's film remake of The Untouchables passed him by when Robert De Niro became available. The director went on to send him a cheque for £20,000, the receipt of which gave the actor one of his favourite and most oft-repeated stories. "I phoned him up and I said 'Brian, if you've ever got any films you don't want me in, son, you just give me a call'." In 2012, Hoskins announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. That year saw him make his final big-screen appearance, as one of the eight dwarves in Snow White and the Huntsman. Bob Hoskins was also a playwright who wrote under the name Robert Williams. He was twice married and had four children.

Bob Hoskins | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie twitter Biography by Rebecca Flint Marx Although Bob Hoskins first became widely known to American audiences as a detective assigned to investigate a cartoon rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), the balding, burly actor had long been recognized in his native England as a performer of exceptional versatility, capable of playing characters from working-class toughs to Shakespearean villains. Born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, on October 26, 1942, where his mother had been sent to get away from the then-raging London Blitz, Hoskins was sent back to London with his mother when he was only two weeks old. Growing up in a solidly working-class family in post-war London, Hoskins stayed in school until he was 15, and he then abandoned formal education in favor of a string of diverse jobs. Over the course of the next ten years, he worked as a Covent Garden porter, member of the Norwegian Merchant Marines, steeplejack, plumber's assistant, banana picker, circus fire-eater, trainee accountant, and even spent time working on a kibbutz in Israel.

At the age of 25, having garnered a lifetime's worth of unusual experiences, Hoskins got into acting. Hanging out at a pub one night with a friend who was auditioning for a play, he was asked to read for a part in the production. He got the part, and in the course of performing, was approached by an agent who suggested that Hoskins take up acting professionally and began arranging auditions for him. From there, Hoskins began acting onstage, working throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s with such theatres as London's Royal Court and National Theatre and as a member of such troupes as The Royal Shakespeare Company. Hoskins made his film debut in 1972 with a minor role in the comedy Up the Front . Three years later he got his first substantial film role in the forgettable Inserts , but in 1980, he made a significant breakthrough, turning in a brilliant portrayal of a successful gangster whose world suddenly begins to fall apart in The Long Good Friday . He found even greater success six years later portraying a gangster-turned-chauffeur assigned to a high-priced call girl in Mona Lisa .

His performance earned him Best Actor awards from the British Academy, the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle, and a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. For all of the acclaim surrounding his work, it was not until he starred in the aforementioned Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988 that Hoskins became known to a mainstream American audience. His American accent in the film was so convincing, that in addition to earning him a Golden Globe nomination, it led some viewers to assume that he was actually an American actor. Hoskins could subsequently be seen in a number of American films in addition to those he made in Britain, appearing in such features as Mermaids (1990), in which he played Cher 's love interest; Heart Condition (1990), in which he played an unhinged racist detective; and Nixon (1995), which featured him as another crazed law enforcement official, J. Edgar Hoover. In 1997, he returned to his roots in Twentyfourseven , earning a European Film Academy Best Actor Award for his portrayal of a man trying to set up an amateur boxing league for working-class young men in economically depressed, Thatcher-era England.

Two years later, Hoskins turned in a similarly gripping performance as a caterer with a dangerous secret in Felicia's Journey , a psychological thriller directed by Atom Egoyan . Hoskins continued to work steadily into the beginning of the next decade in a variety of projects including acting opposite Michael Caine in Last Orders and playing a supporting role in the Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan. He continued to appear in an eclectic series of films including Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Seas, as a very bad guy in the martial-arts film Unleashed, the costume drama Vanity Fair, and earning strong reviews playing opposite an Oscar nominated Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents. He also lent his very distinctive voice to one of the animated characters in the sequel Gairfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. That same year he portrayed a movie studio chief who may have had something to do with the death of George Reeves in the drama Hollywoodland opposite Ben Affleck, Adrien Brody, and Diane Lane. He appeared in Disney's A Christmas Carol, Made in Dangenham, and 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman.

In addition to acting, Hoskins has worked behind the camera in a number of capacities. In 1989, he made his directorial and screenwriting debut with The Raggedy Rawney, a drama about a band of gypsies set during World War II. He also served as an executive producer for The Secret Agent in 1996. In August of 2012 Hoskins announced his retirement from acting in part because he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He passed away after a bout of pneumonia in 2014, at age 71. Movie Highlights Left school at 15. Claimed to have never taken an acting lesson. Before getting into acting, worked as a steeplejack, plumber's assistant and fire eater in the circus. Studied to be an accountant. Got his first acting job by accident: he accompanied a friend on an audition, wound up auditioning himself, and got the part. Was Brian De Palma's second choice, after Robert De Niro, to play Al Capone in 1987's The Untouchables. Announced his retirement in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Question: What was Bob Hoskins' profession when he worked in the circus?
Answer: Fire-eater