Biography
This page uses content from the Bernard Hill biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Bernard Hill (born December 17, 1944 in Manchester, England) is an English actor.
Hill attended Xaverian College, although at the time it was still a school. He came to prominence in the role of the unemployed Yosser Hughes, a working-class man ultimately driven to the edge by an uncaring system, in Alan Bleasdale's BBC Play for Today The Black Stuff (1979) and its more famous series sequel (also by Bleasdale), Boys from the Blackstuff (1982). His character's much-repeated phrase "giz a job" became popular with protesters against Margaret Thatcher's government, because of the high unemployment of the time. Previously, he had taken smaller parts in a number of British television dramas, notably appearing as the no-nonsense Roman soldier Gratus in I, Claudius (1976). Also on TV, he played the part of Tom Higdon in The Burston Rebellion (1985). He also played the coroner Madgett in Peter Greenaway's Drowning by Numbers (1988).
In addition to TV roles Hill appeared on stage in both 'The Cherry Orchard' (Aldwych Theatre) and in the title role in 'Macbeth' (Leicester Haymarket Theatre, 1986).
In James Cameron's 1997 movie blockbuster Titanic he plays the RMS Titanic's Captain Edward J. Smith.
Hill was cast in the role of King Théoden of Rohan in the second and third of Peter Jackson's movies based on Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
Hill read famous quotations about religion and atheism in the 2004 documentary Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief by Jonathan Miller.
External link
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
