by Tom Wilkinson, the actor who could turn a maniacal lawyer, a steel foreman-turned-stripper, and roles big and small in fascinating turns, earning Oscar nominations and plaudits for his performances in films like “Michael Clayton” and “The Full Monty “, “He died on Saturday. He was 75 years old.
A statement sent by his agent on behalf of Mr Wilkinson’s family said he died suddenly at his home. He did not provide other details.
Mr. Wilkinson’s reach seemed limitless.
He earned Academy Award nominations for his work in “In the Bedroom” and “Michael Clayton” and delighted audiences in comedies such as “The Full Monty” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
He appeared in blockbuster films such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “Batman Begins” and took on horror in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” history as Benjamin Franklin in the HBO series “John Adams” and memory in the film “Eternal.” Sunshine of the mind without memories.”
He often didn’t have the name recognition or star power of the actors he played alongside: George Clooney, Sissy Spacek and Ben Affleck, among them. But she attracted public attention and critical praise through decades of work in television, film and theater.
“I see myself as a utilitarian actor, the one who can do everything,” he told the New York Times in 2002. “I’ve always felt that actors should have a certain degree of anonymity about themselves.”
Yet for many Britons, “The Full Monty” remains his most beloved performance, in which he plays one of the gruff, unemployed steelworkers of Sheffield, England, who plan to make some money and repair their self-esteem by starting an act. striptease for the city.
Wilkinson played Gerald Cooper, an elderly former foreman who joins the team in part to escape the ornamental gnomes his wife erected on the lawn.
But his reach extended far beyond comedy, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in “In the Bedroom,” directed by Todd Field.
Opposite Ms. Spacek, Mr. Wilkinson played half of a Maine couple struggling after the murder of their son. Field said he was attracted to Wilkinson because of his everyman quality.
“You don’t normally think that Robert Redford is going to live next door,” Field told The Times. “But you think Tom Wilkinson might live next door. That is the difference.”
A few years later, Wilkinson was again acclaimed as a powerful lawyer who suffers a nervous breakdown in Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton.” He was nominated for another Academy Award for his performance in that film.
By then, Wilkinson had been acting in theater, television and film for three decades.
He was born in Yorkshire, England, and his parents moved to Canada when he was 4 years old, looking for a better job than farming. His stay lasted only six years, during which time his father worked as an aluminum smelter. The family returned to Britain, where Mr Wilkinson’s parents ran a pub in Cornwall until his father died, drawing Mr Wilkinson and his mother back to Yorkshire.
Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
Wilkinson said her life took a sharp turn at age 16, at King James’s High School in Knaresborough, where the headteachers “just decided she would do something with me”.
This, he said, “meant that they invited me to their house, that they taught me how to eat, which knives and forks to take first.”
“We went to the theater together,” he said. “Having wandered aimlessly around the school, suddenly someone became interested in me.”
But he was not drawn to acting until he arrived at the University of Canterbury in 1967, he said. After university, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, where he discovered that it was possible for “working-class kids from the provinces” to open art galleries, run rock bands, become designers and actors.
“All the things that weren’t right became great,” he said. “I saw the young provincial bohemian and thought, that role could be mine. I will be in the arts. You can have a life in the arts. Why not?”
