Ian Holm

Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert (12 September 1931 – 19 June 2020) was an English actor. After graduating from RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) and beginning his career on the British stage as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a successful and prolific performer on television and in film. He received numerous accolades including two BAFTA Awards and a Tony Award, along with a nomination for an Academy Award. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998 for services to drama.

Holm won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in the Harold Pinter play The Homecoming. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role in the 1998 West End production of King Lear. For his television roles he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for King Lear, and the HBO film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2003).

Holm gained acclaim for his role in The Bofors Gun (1968), winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a second BAFTA Award for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981). Other notable films he appeared in include Alien (1979), Brazil (1985), Dreamchild (1985), Henry V (1989), Naked Lunch (1991), The Madness of King George (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and The Aviator (2004). He played Napoleon in three unrelated works between 1974 and 2001. He gained wider appreciation for his role as the elderly Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) film trilogies, with the last film in the latter, 2014's The Battle of the Five Armies, being his final film role.

Early life and education Ian Holm Cuthbert was born on 12 September 1931 in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents, James Cuthbert and his wife Jean (née Holm). His father was a psychiatrist who worked as the superintendent of the West Ham Corporation Mental Hospital and was one of the pioneers of electric shock therapy; his mother was a nurse. He had an older brother who died when Ian was 12 years old. Holm was educated at the independent Chigwell School in Essex.

A chance encounter with Henry Baynton, a well-known provincial Shakespearean actor, helped Holm train for admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he secured a place from 1950. Two years later, he made his London stage debut in Love Affair. In 1969, he appeared in Moonlight on the Highway. He took on minor roles in films such as Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Mary, Queen of Scots (1972) and Young Winston (1972).

In 1967, Holm won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play as Lenny in The Homecoming by Harold Pinter. Holm appeared in the 1977 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth as the Sadducee Zerah, and as the villain in March or Die. The following year, he played J. M. Barrie in the award-winning BBC mini-series The Lost Boys. In 1981, he played Frodo Baggins in the BBC radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Holm's first film role to gain much notice was that of Ash, the "calm, technocratic" science officer – later revealed to be an android – in Ridley Scott's science-fiction film Alien (1979).

In 1989, Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award for the television series Game, Set and Match. Based on the novels by Len Deighton, this tells the story of an intelligence officer (Holm) who finds a security leak at the heart of his network. He continued to perform Shakespeare in films. He appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V (1989) and as Polonius to Mel Gibson's Hamlet (1990). Holm was reunited with Branagh in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), playing the father of Branagh's Victor Frankenstein.

Holm was nominated for an Emmy Award twice, for a PBS broadcast of a National Theatre production of King Lear, in 1999; and for a supporting role in the HBO film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells opposite Judi Dench, in 2001. He voiced Chef Skinner in the Pixar animated film Ratatouille (2007). His acting was admired by Harold Pinter: the playwright once said: "He puts on my shoe, and it fits!" Holm played Lenny in both the London and New York City premieres of Pinter's The Homecoming; the BBC wrote that he "electrified audiences" in the play. He played Napoleon Bonaparte three times: in the television mini-series Napoleon and Love (1974), Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981), and The Emperor's New Clothes (2001). to Lynn Mary Shaw in 1955 (divorced 1965); to Sophie Baker in 1982 (divorced 1986); to the actress Penelope Wilton, in 1991 (divorced 2001); and to the artist Sophie de Stempel in 2003. He had five children.

Holm and Wilton appeared together in the BBC miniseries The Borrowers (1993). His last wife, Sophie de Stempel, was a protégée and a life model of Lucian Freud, and an artist.

He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Holm was treated for prostate cancer in 2001.

Death

Holm died in hospital in London on 19 June 2020 at the age of 88. According to Alex Irwin, Holm's agent, his death was related to Parkinson's disease.

Posthumous image use For the 2024 film Alien: Romulus, the android character Rook was meant to be the same model as Ash, the character Holm played in the first Alien film in 1979. With the consent of his heirs, the depiction of Rook was created using a combination of animatronics and computer-generated imagery based on Holm's archive data, with another actor providing Rook's voice.

Filmography

Film Year Title Role Notes 1968 The Bofors Gun Flynn A Midsummer Night's Dream Puck 1969 Oh! What a Lovely War Raymond Poincaré 1979 Alien Ash Helen Man 1984 Laughterhouse Ben Singleton 1985 Dreamchild Charles L. Dodgson 1988 Another Woman Ken Post Kafka Doctor Murnau 1994 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Baron Alphonse Frankenstein 1998 Alice through the Looking Glass White Knight 1999 Shergar Joseph Maguire The Match Big Tam The Miracle Maker Pontius Pilate (voice) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the RingBilbo Baggins O Jerusalem Ben Gurion

Television

Theatre Year Title Role Venue

1998: Knighted in the 1998 Birthday Honours for services to drama.