1. Bernard Hill was known for his versatile roles in both television and film, and his career spanned over fifty years.
22 Facts About Bernard Hill
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Bernard Hill received an additional nomination for his role as David Blunkett in the drama A Very Social Secretary, for which he was nominated for an International Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor.
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Bernard Hill appeared on television in I, Claudius, the BBC Television Shakespeare productions of Henry VI, Part 1,2, and 3, and Richard III, Great Expectations, and Wolf Hall.
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Bernard Hill gained international recognition for his film roles as Captain Edward Smith in Titanic and Theoden, King of Rohan, in the second and third films of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
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Bernard Hill was born in Blackley, Manchester, on 17 December 1944.
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Bernard Hill was brought up in a Catholic family of miners.
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Bernard Hill enrolled at the Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama at the same time as Richard Griffiths.
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Bernard Hill first came to prominence in 1980 as Yosser Hughes, a working-class Liverpudlian man ultimately driven to the edge by an uncaring welfare system, in Alan Bleasdale's BBC Play for Today programme, The Black Stuff, and its series sequel, Boys from the Blackstuff.
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Bernard Hill's character's much-repeated phrase Gizza job became popular with protesters against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, because of the high unemployment of the time.
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Bernard Hill then appeared as Sergeant Putnam in Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough.
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Bernard Hill had previously taken smaller parts in a number of British television dramas, appearing in I, Claudius, in 1976, as the character Gratus.
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Bernard Hill appeared in Shirley Valentine, as Joe Bradshaw the husband of Liverpool housewife, a former anti-establishment rebel who engages in an extramarital affair.
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Bernard Hill added more prominent films to his resume, including Mountains of the Moon, Skallagrigg and Madagascar Skin.
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Bernard Hill then played Luther Plunkitt, the Warden of San Quentin Prison, in the Clint Eastwood film True Crime.
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Bernard Hill played Philos in The Scorpion King, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Michael Clarke Duncan and Kelly Hu.
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Bernard Hill played King Theoden of Rohan in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, which were released in 2002 and 2003 respectively.
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Bernard Hill played a minor role in the 2008 film Valkyrie, as the commanding general of the 10th Panzer Division of the German Afrika Korps, and was a voice actor for the character Sir Walter Beck in the video game Fable III.
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Bernard Hill was the voice of The Judge in the American stop motion animated comedy horror film ParaNorman in 2012.
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Bernard Hill played Samuel Cotton, who ran a sweet factory with his son in the 2014 three-part BBC drama series about Manchester From There to Here.
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Bernard Hill appeared as Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, in the 2015 six-part BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novels, Wolf Hall.
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Bernard Hill had a daughter from a relationship with Sue Allen, and a son from a relationship with Annabel Turner.
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Bernard Hill, who was living in Reydon, Suffolk, died on 5 May 2024, aged 79.