British actor Bob Hoskins died last night of pneumonia at 71. He’ll certainly be remembered for starring with cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit — but that was just one of many films in which he played tough guys with soft hearts.
Short, stocky, dyslexic, balding, and with a cockney accent thick enough to spread on toast, Hoskins was hardly conventional leading man material. But he sure got to play opposite some gorgeous co-stars — Kathleen Turner’s Jessica Rabbit, of course, but also Cher in Mermaids and Michelle Pfeiffer in Sweet Liberty; and in Mona Lisa, Cecily Tyson’s daughter Cathy played the call girl he chauffeured for, fell in love with and wanted to protect.
Hoskins played a mostly passive character in Mona Lisa — not his usual thing, which may be why the role got him his only Oscar nomination. His usual thing was more blustery — from real-life figures like J. Edgar Hoover, Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini and Nikita Khrushchev to gangsters and detectives, like the one who had to hold his own opposite an animated rabbit.
Hoskins was hired for Who Framed Roger Rabbit because the filmmakers knew that he’d keep the story grounded, something the actor told interviewers he did in a decidedly ungrounded way — basically learning to “hallucinate” his costars.
Hoskins got his first acting gig, at 26, by accident: He went with a friend to an audition. just to keep him company, got a script shoved into his hand by someone who said “you’re next,” and decided to give it a shot. He ended up getting the lead, with his friend as his understudy. At which point he also started getting terrible advice, as he told WHYY’s Fresh Air.