'Lord Of The Rings' And 'Titanic' Star, Bernard Hill Passes Away At 79
Image Source: France 24
Hollywood said goodbye to another legend when Bernard Hill passed away at the age of 79 on the morning of Sunday, May 5. The cause of death was not released; however, his fiancée Alison and son Gabriel were with him at the time of passing. Hill was best known for playing Captain Smith in Titanic and King Theoden in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. The actor got his start with a BBC drama series from 1982 called Boys from the Blackstuff. Hill played the role of Yosser Hughes, a Liverpool man struggling under the weight of unemployment. Fans praised Hill’s role as a “powerful unhinged performance” that “stopped an entire nation in its tracks.”
Hill was set to return to the small screen with a new season of the BBC drama The Responder, which premieres this Sunday. The director Linday Salt honored Hill’s achievements: “Bernard Hill blazed a trail across the screen, and his long-lasting career filled with iconic and remarkable roles is a testament to his incredible talent.” Hill’s other notable roles include the Duke of Norfolk in Wolf Hall and appearances in Claudius, Gandhi, Shirley Valentine, The Scorpion King, and Valkyrie.
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Image Source: Niche Gamer
The actor was supposed to appear at a Comic Con in Liverpool over the weekend, but had to cancel. His Middle-earth co-stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd (known to fans as Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin) were sad to hear the news, and paid tribute to the late actor. Astin said, “We love him. He was intrepid, he was funny, he was gruff, he was irascible, he was beautiful.”
The writer of Boys from the Blackstuff Alan Bleasdale had much praise for Hill. “I was desperate to work with him. Everything he did - his whole procedure for working, the manner in which he worked and his performance was everything that you could ever wish for. You always felt that Bernard would live forever. He had a great strength, physically and of personality.”
In a touching tribute on X, Wood borrowed Tolkien’s words to honor the fallen King Theoden to pay respect to the actor. He wrote, “So long to our friend, our king, Bernard Hill. We will never forget you. ‘For he was a gentle heart and a great king and kept his oaths; and he rose out of the shadows to a last fair morning.’”
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Sources: BBC, IGN, Elijah Wood on X
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