{"id":10392,"date":"2011-01-03T15:34:22","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T15:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=10392"},"modified":"2011-01-03T15:34:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T15:34:22","slug":"pete-postlethwaite-1946-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/01\/03\/pete-postlethwaite-1946-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Actor Pete Postlethwaite<\/a><\/strong> died yesterday aged 64, after a prolonged battle with cancer.<\/p>\n

A British stage and television veteran, he began his career at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre<\/a> and went on to work at the Manchester Royal Exchange<\/a> and the Royal Shakespeare Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His film career began with a supporting role in A Private Function<\/a> (1984) and a memorable performance in Terence Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives<\/a> (1988) which helped cement his reputation as a screen actor.<\/p>\n

But it was his Oscar-nominated turn as Guiseppe Conlon in In the Name of the Father<\/a> (1993) alongside Daniel Day Lewis that really established him as an actor in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

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The success of that film let to further roles in major Hollywood productions such as The Usual Suspects<\/a> (1995), Romeo + Juliet<\/a> (1996), Amistad<\/a> (1997) and Jurassic Park: The Lost World<\/a> (1997).<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object> Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Although never a leading man, it was a remarkable run of work for a veteran actor in his late 40s, and his reputation was further enhanced when Steven Spielberg proclaimed him as<\/a>:<\/p>\n

‘probably the best actor in the world today’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He continued to work in Britain, with roles in the BBC adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit<\/a> (1994) and as the passionate band conductor in Brassed Off<\/a> (1996).<\/p>\n

In the past decade the quality of films he cropped up in varied with parts in \u00c6on Flux<\/a> (2005), The Omen<\/a> (2006) and Solomon Kane<\/a> (2008) beneath his considerable talents, although a key role in The Constant Gardener<\/a> (2005) was a highlight.<\/p>\n

He also returned to the stage in 2008 for a production of King Lear<\/a> at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and the Young Vic, London.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Politically active, he marched against the Iraq war in 2003, supported the Make Poverty History campaign and also starred in a film about global warming, The Age of Stupid<\/a> (2009).<\/p>\n

In the last year he returned with two small but memorable roles in major Hollywood productions: he was the dying patriach in Inception<\/a> (2010) and a creepy Boston gangster in The Town<\/a> (2010).<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Postlethwaite was previously diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990 and continued to work in recent times despite receiving further treatment.<\/p>\n

He lived in Shropshire and paid tribute to the staff at his local hospital, the Royal Shrewsbury<\/a>, telling the Shropshire Star<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“They have been wonderful and I am grateful to them. I cannot thank them enough for everything that they have done for me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He is survived by his wife, Jacqui, his son Will and daughter, Lily.<\/p>\n

> Pete Postlethwaite<\/a> at the IMDb
\n> Obituaries at BBC News<\/a>, The Guardian<\/a> and New York Times<\/a>
\n> Various links at The Daily MUBi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actor Pete Postlethwaite died yesterday aged 64, after a prolonged battle with cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1770],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}