(5 February 1948 - 30 December 2023)
The English actor Tom Wilkinson, who has died aged 75, began working mainly on stage. He had no ambitions to be a star player, preferring instead to stay out of the limelight and just get on with the work. But he did become well-known and well-loved, and because he played such a large range of roles, he could never be typecast. He graced many fine films, including In the Name of the Father, Sense and Sensibility, The Full Monty, Wilde (as the Marquis of Queensbury), Shakespeare in Love, Todd Field’s In the Bedroom, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Belle (as the Earl of Mansfield), to name just a handful.
Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson was born in Leeds in Yorkshire, the son of Thomas Wilkinson, a farmer, and his wife Marjorie. When he was eleven, the family emigrated to Canada for five years. Back in the UK they ran a pub in Cornwall, while Tom studied at the University of Kent where he found his interest in acting in the university’s drama society. After that he trained at Rada and joined Nottingham Playhouse and later on the RSC. For his West End debut, he was Horatio in Hamlet at the Aldwych, winning an Olivier Award for best supporting actor. He also played Dr Stockmann in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at the Playhouse.
His first film was Andrzej Wajda’s The Shadow Line, the 1976 adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel of the sea with Wilkinson as the cook in a mostly Polish cast. Bones in 1984 had another international cast in a tale of the kidnapping of a businessman. Wetherby had David Hare directing his own screenplay, with Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench. After a run of TV shows, Miss Marple, Travelling Man, Ben Elton’s Happy Families, and Jeffrey Archer’s First Among Equals, his film career continued with Antonia Bird’s Priest, Gillian Armstrong’s Oscar and Lucinda, Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot, and Peter Webber’s Girl With a Pearl Earring.
The Full Monty was Peter Cattaneo’s advice on how to beat unemployment – by becoming a male stripper. Tom Wilkinson worked for Woody Allen on Cassandra’s Dream, appeared with George Clooney in Michael Clayton and with Tom Cruise in Valkyrie and Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol. He was directed by Roman Polanski in The Ghost Writer, by Robert Redford in The Conspirator, and by Wes Anderson in The Grand Budapest Hotel. With Judi Dench and Maggie Smith he was in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and played a doctor in Rupert Everett’s Wilde film The Happy Prince. No stranger to genre films, he was also in Rush Hour with Jackie Chan, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp
Wilkinson was nominated for two Oscars, for In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton. His London Film Critics’ Circle Award was for the latter and he won a Bafta for The Full Monty. He also won a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for John Adams, the TV series about the 18th-century US President. Tom Wilkinson was married to the actress Diana Hardcastle and they have two daughters, Alice and Molly. World cinema will not be the same without him. He was always a likeable actor and his versatility knew no bounds. There is, quite simply, nobody to replace him. We have lost a really good one.
MICHAEL DARVELL
