Peter William Postlethwaite was born into a working-class Catholic family at 101 Norris Street[3] in Warrington on 7 February 1946,[4][5] the son of Mary Geraldine (née Lawless; 1913–2000) and cooper, wood machinist, and school caretaker William Postlethwaite (1913–1988).[6][7] He had an older brother named Michael (1944–2006) and two older sisters named Patricia and Anne. He would later portray Irish characters on multiple occasions, leading some to mistakenly believe that he was of Irish descent.[8]
He initially trained to be a Catholic priest,[10] but later settled on a career in acting. He trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1970.[11]
Early in his career, Postlethwaite was advised to adopt a new surname for his acting work by his first agent and by peers who quipped that his name "would never be put up in lights outside theatres because they couldn't afford the electricity". He rejected the advice.[12] He started his career at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher, Matthew Kelly, and Julie Walters, having an intimate relationship with the last during the mid-to-late 1970s.[13]
In 2003, he toured Australia and New Zealand in a 90-minute one-man play, Scaramouche Jones, in which he played a clown trying to find out who he is before he dies at midnight, receiving a nomination for the TMA Award for Best Actor and winning the Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Solo Performance.[14] This was directed by Rupert Goold, who would also direct his Lear in 2008, in which Postlethwaite played every character. As well as Australia, the play toured Canada, New Zealand and the UK to great acclaim.[13]
Steven Spielberg, who directed Postlethwaite in 1997's The Lost World: Jurassic Park, called him "the best actor in the world".[16] Postlethwaite quipped: "I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'The thing about Pete is that he thinks he's the best actor in the world.'"[17] Postlethwaite next starred in a Liverpool stage production of King Lear in 2008 at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, and at the Young Vic, London. He appeared in the climate change-themed film The Age of Stupid, which premiered in March 2009.
One of his more notable roles was Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in ITV's Sharpe series. The actor said this was one of his favourite roles and that he and fellow actor Sean Bean played well off each other because of their mutual love and respect. Bernard Cornwell, the author and creator of the Sharpe series, specifically wrote Hakeswill's character in later novels to reflect Postlethwaite's performance as the character in the TV series. Postlethwaite co-starred with Bean in When Saturday Comes. [citation needed]
Terminally ill, Postlethwaite made a return to Hollywood in three 2010 films, first as Spyros in Clash of the Titans. He next appeared in the blockbuster hit Inception as Maurice Fischer, an industrialist who is slowly dying. Lastly, his performance in The Town as florist and crime boss Fergus "Fergie" Colm was well received by critics, which would earn him a posthumous nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and making several publications' lists of Oscar predictions for Best Supporting Actor.[18][19][20] His final appearance on screen was in Nick Hamm's film Killing Bono, based on the memoir of Neil McCormick. The role was written specially for Postlethwaite to accommodate his illness.[21] The film was released on 1 April 2011. He was scheduled to be in the BBC series Exile, but had to pull out because of ill health and was replaced by Jim Broadbent.[22]
In his later years, Postlethwaite was vocal in calling for action on climate change, and installed a wind turbine in his garden; he wrote in The Sun, "The stakes [of climate change] are very, very high. They're through the roof. How could we willingly know that we're going into extinction ... and let it happen?"[25][26] At the UK premiere of The Age of Stupid in 2009, he told then-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate ChangeEd Miliband that he would return his OBE and vote for any party other than Labour if the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station was given the go-ahead by the Labour government.[27]
Personal life
Postlethwaite lived in West Itchenor before moving near Bishop's Castle. He was a lifelong supporter of Liverpool FC.[28] He began a relationship with former BBC producer Jacqueline Morrish in 1987, and they were married in 2003 at St Nicholas' Church in West Itchenor. They had a son, actor Billy Postlethwaite (born 1989),[13] and a daughter, Lily Postlethwaite (born 1996).
Health issues and death
Postlethwaite was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990, and had his right testicle removed.[29][30] A life-long smoker since he was 10,[31] he said during a 2009 interview with Scotland on Sunday, "We've got to hope the next generation will do things differently. I'm sure that in 20 years' time the kids will say: 'Can you believe that people actually used to smoke – put these funny little things in their mouths, lit them and sucked all that crap into their lungs?"[32]
Postlethwaite was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March 2009,[33] and continued acting for the next year and a half, showing clear signs of weight loss during his last performances.[34] On 2 January 2011, at the age of 64, he died at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury.[35][36][37][38] In his final two years, he worked on his memoir A Spectacle of Dust with writer Andy Richardson, which was published in June 2011.[9][39]
^"Pete's progress". The Observer. London. 1 October 2000. Retrieved 25 April 2007.
^Cavendish, Dominic (25 April 2007). "The poet in Pete's soul". The Telegraph. London, UK. Archived from the original on 2 December 2008. Retrieved 25 April 2007.