But the actor still had his best work in front of him - roles in Hollywood blockbusters like "Jurassic Park," "The Usual Suspects" and recently "Inception.
Postlethwaite received the most acclaim however, for the film "In the Name of the Father," in which Daniel Day-Lewis played his son falsely accused of a terrorist bombing in Ireland.
Postlethwaite was nominated for an Oscar, but didn't win. Half a million Americans die from cancer each year, making it the second biggest killer behind heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Testicular cancer is more rare. January 03 AM. Facebook Twitter Email. Oscar-nominated actor Pete Postlethwaite has died.
He was The actor had continued to work until recent months despite receiving treatment for cancer. His family has requested that the media respect their privacy. Video: Flaming lorry drives through Coleraine. Politicians and bikers among mourners at funeral for Army veteran Dennis Hutchings. Watch: New trailer for Kenneth Branagh's Belfast released. Every RSC director, you felt, wanted his name on the team sheet. And when Trevor Nunn opened the Swan in , Postlethwaite was on hand to provide classic, rumbustious knockabout first as Captain Bobadil in a revival of Every Man in His Humour he played the role in a permanent state of helpless recovery from a hopeless hangover , and then as the loudmouth, rapacious Roughman in Nunn's version of Thomas Heywood's Fair Maid of the West.
But he had to leave the company to play the leads, giving a bloodcurdlingly haunted Macbeth back at Bristol Old Vic for his old Liverpool mucker, George Costigan, in , and a bewitching, valedictory Prospero for Greg Hersov in The Tempest at the Royal Exchange in Manchester 10 years later. He played the sleazy talent agent Ray Say, far seedier than Michael Caine in the film version. A highly successful collaboration with the director Rupert Goold on Justin Butcher's Scaramouche Jones — as a dying clown reliving his colourful life as a last gasp over 90 minutes — led to his stage apotheosis as King Lear on the Liverpool Everyman stage where his career had begun.
This was to mark Liverpool's year, in , as European capital of culture. The performance received mixed reviews but the critically abhorred gimmicks seemed perfectly reasonable by the time the show fetched up at the Young Vic in London. Rather like Jacobi — and here all comparisons end — Postlethwaite went down the route of splenetic crustiness rather than tyrannical grandeur. The spirit of the Everyman was abroad. But the tragedy thickened, bristling with intelligent ideas and wonderful staging; and Postlethwaite was, in the end, deeply touching in a housecoat and granny glasses, left out on the heath like some endangered relic from an old folks' home, cracked with madness, moving cheerlessly towards the inevitable.
Nick Hamm writes: Pete always called it the way it was. He punctured pretentiousness and established a level of truth in his work as an actor. Woe betide the director who hadn't done his homework or was trying to put one over on him. Pete became the shop steward of many a company. He represented the actors' interests, both in the rehearsal room and out of it. In a business where words so often lose their meaning — where hyperbole is the norm — he was the real deal; a genuinely honest, decent man who loved his friends and family with a passion I've rarely encountered.
We worked for many years together in the theatre, but it was in film where Pete really found public recognition. He demanded to be watched. I was privileged to have him star in my film Killing Bono. He had wanted to be part of the project, but before we started shooting he told me that he was ill with cancer. We talked and it became clear that even though he was undergoing chemotherapy he still wanted to be part of the story. More than that, he wanted the discipline and motivation of work, so we gave it to him.
We couldn't insure him in the role he was originally meant to play so we wrote another for him.
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