Actor Ian Holm has died, aged 88.
“It is with great sadness that the actor Sir Ian Holm CBE passed away this morning at the age of 88,” his agents confirmed.
Holm – who appeared in the Lord of the Rings and Alien franchises – was suffering from an illness that was related to Parkinson’s.
“Charming, kind and ferociously talented, we will miss him hugely,” they said, adding: “He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer.”
Holm became a Bafta winner and Oscar nominee following his role in 1981 film Chariots Fire, in which he played the athletics coach Sam Mussabini.
He started out with a career in theatre, which he eventually quit in 1976 after experiencing stage fright.
It was during a performance in 1976’s The Iceman Cometh that Holm had “a sort of breakdown” on stage, which left what he once described as “a scar on my memory that will never go away”.
Ahead of that, he had been a prominent figure at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and won an Evening Standard trophy for his performance in Henry V (1965).
After turning his back on theatre, he had roles in Oh! What. Lovely War, Young Winston and Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Following his appearance in Scott’s seminal science-fiction horror film, he scored roles in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element and Atom Egoyan film The Sweet Hereafter.
His performance as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) introduced Holm to a whole new generation. He reprised the role in The Return of the King (2003), as well as the first and third instalments of Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy nine years later.
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