Peter "Pete" Postlethwaite
Oscar-nominated actor Pete Postlethwaite has died aged 64 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Friends of the star said he passed away peacefully at a hospital in Shropshire on Sunday, where he was being treated for the disease that he was first diagnosed with in 1990.
The actor leaves his partner of 20 years, Jacqui, and two children – William, 21, a drama student and daughter Lily, 14. Director Steven Spielberg once described Pete Postlethwaite as ‘the greatest actor in the world’. To which the gloriously unassuming Englishman responded: ‘I’m sure what Spielberg said was: “The thing about Pete is that he thinks he’s the best actor in the world.”’
Typical, humble ‘Poss’, his friends would say.
But Spielberg was far from alone in his reverence for the actor whose death, after a long struggle with cancer, was announced yesterday.
Postlethwaite played across the dramatic range, from kitchen sink comedy, through blockbuster thriller, to Shakespearean tragedy.
His gaunt, irregular features and luminous eyes were as distinctive as his un-Hollywood surname. He once quipped he would never see his name in lights ‘as they would run out of bulbs’.
But his unstarry qualities allowed him to excel in his major roles — as a mysterious lawyer in the iconic crime film The Usual Suspects, and in his Oscar-nominated performance as Guiseppe Conlon in In The Name Of The Father.
And yet, in spite of the plaudits and publicity, he remained to the end a private, family man, beloved by his peers. Rural Shropshire, rather than star-studded Malibu, became his preferred home. And that is where he died, aged 64.
Postlethwaite was the youngest child in a close-knit, working-class Roman Catholic family from Warrington. It was an entirely happy upbringing, which he later said caused him trouble with his breakthrough role in Distant Voices, Still Lives, a drunken, alcoholic father — a character which he said he simply couldn’t identify with.
But he very nearly missed his vocation as an actor entirely. As a boy, he had ideas of entering the priesthood, but trained to be a PE teacher.
He briefly pursued this career in Manchester before enrolling, aged 24, as a drama student at the Bristol Old Vic, working night shifts making beer kegs to pay his way.
But he had talent. Soon after graduation he joined the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, whose vibrant, young company now reads like a roll call of veteran talent: Antony Sher, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russell and Julie Walters.
Postlethwaite and Walters became more than just colleagues, living together in London for much of the late Seventies. He once said he was ‘madly in love’ with her for six years and took two years to recover from their split, which he blamed on his own insecurity.
But he had talent. Soon after graduation he joined the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, whose vibrant, young company now reads like a roll call of veteran talent: Antony Sher, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russell and Julie Walters.
Postlethwaite and Walters became more than just colleagues, living together in London for much of the late Seventies. He once said he was ‘madly in love’ with her for six years and took two years to recover from their split, which he blamed on his own insecurity.
The film’s director, Jim Sheridan, said last night: ‘Poss was an amazing character and a lovely man. He was a great warrior. He looked indestructible, that was the thing about him.’
The success led to key parts in the The Usual Suspects, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and the British comedy Brassed Off. Last night, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott said that the film, about the struggles of a band after the closure of their South Yorkshire pit, ‘had a real effect on me and our government’.
It also led to the chance to work with the world’s most successful film-maker.
When Spielberg — with whom he made The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Amistad — paid him that ultimate compliment for his acting talents, Postlethwaite quipped: ‘It sounds like an advert for lager, and it’s only one man’s opinion.’ It was a classic, self-deprecating joke.
And even with such plaudits ringing in his ears, Postlethwaite found it hard to fit in among the A-List.
He had, very briefly, tried to live in California. But an incident in an airport at the height of his fame persuaded him that his heart lay elsewhere.
He recalled: ‘I checked in believing myself to be in New York, but when I looked up at the boards I realised I was in LA.
‘Then my phone rang, and it was my agent wanting to know why I wasn’t in San Francisco.’
The Hollywood lifestyle just wasn’t for him. He once turned down £10 million to star in the 1999 car flick Gone In 60 Seconds, explaining that the film ‘said nothing about life.’
In recent times, he was still enjoying good parts in more intelligent blockbusters including the Oscar-winning The Constant Gardener and last year’s Inception, with Leonardo DiCaprio, in which he played a dying businessman.
Nevertheless the last three years had seen him return to his dramatic roots on the classical stage in his native North West.
There were starring roles as Prospero in The Tempest in Manchester and the lead in King Lear, at his alma mater, the Everyman. And although the early performances of Lear came in for heavy criticism from the critics, Postlethwaite showed his non-egotistical nature by accepting his damning reviews and changing his perfomance.
Kevin Spacey, who starred with Postlethwaite in The Usual Suspects, said: ‘He was a great man of theatre... I suspect the country will come to regard him as a national treasure.’
Acting was far from his main passion, however. He also pursued a number of causes, including campaigning against the Iraq War and global warming, the latter being the subject of his 2009 film The Age Of Stupid.
At the premiere he threatened to return the OBE he was awarded in 2004 if the Labour Government pursued its plan to build two new coal-fired units at a power station in Kingsnorth, Kent. By then he had built his solar and wind-turbine powered home in Shropshire, with Jacqui, a former BBC producer and his partner of 20 years, whom he married in 2003.
They had a son, William, and a daughter, Lily. The former is studying to be an actor.
Recently the actor said he was happiest with his family at home, on a sofa, watching the Abba musical Mamma Mia!
An uncompromising heavy smoker, Postlethwaite was first diagnosed with cancer almost 20 years ago. A testicle was removed. He persisted in smoking, even though he once admitted it was his ‘biggest regret.’
We’ve got to hope the next generation will do things differently,’ he admitted, while discussing his smoking habit last year. ‘I’m sure that in 20 years’ time the kids will say: “Can you believe that people actually used to smoke — put these funny little things in their mouths, lit them and sucked all that c*** into their lungs?”’
Alas, by this point his cancer had returned. This time there would be no reprieve.
He had recently finished his last film, Killing Bono, which was directed by his old friend Nick Hamm. ‘I wrote to Pete the year before last about the movie and he told me he had cancer,’ Hamm revealed last night. ‘He was very ill but he wanted more than anything to work.’
He struggled with chemotherapy while the film was being made, and could only work a certain number of hours a day — but was determined to fight his disease. He lost the battle on Sunday, at the hospital in Shrewsbury where he had been treated.
‘The loss of the great Pete Postlethwaite is a very sad way to begin a year,’ said Stephen Fry last night.
Few would disagree.