Pete Postlethwaite

Peter William Postlethwaite was born on 7 February 1946 into a working-class Catholic family at 101 Norris Street in Warrington, Lancashire, England. He was the son of Mary Geraldine (née Lawless) and William Postlethwaite, a cooper, wood machinist, and school caretaker. He had an older brother, Michael, and two older sisters, Patricia and Anne. Postlethwaite attended St Benedict's RC Junior School and a seminary before enrolling at West Park Grammar School in St Helens, where he played rugby union and completed A-levels in English, history, geography, and French. He initially pursued a vocation as a Catholic priest before redirecting toward teaching, training at St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, where he became the first male drama teacher. He subsequently trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1970.

Postlethwaite began his professional career at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher, Matthew Kelly, and Julie Walters. Early in his career, an agent and peers advised him to change his surname, suggesting it could never be put up in lights outside theatres because of the cost of the electricity required. He declined the advice. He appeared in small television roles, including a part in The Professionals and the role of Jack "Oily" Wragg in a Minder episode. On 13 January 1981, he took the lead in the BBC television black comedy The Muscle Market, written by Alan Bleasdale and broadcast as part of the Play for Today series. From 1981 to 1987, he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Postlethwaite appeared on Broadway in 1984 in Cyrano de Bergerac. His first major film success came with Terence Davies's Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He gained a Hollywood foothold playing David in Alien 3 in 1992, and the following year received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Giuseppe Conlon, father of Gerry Conlon, in In the Name of the Father. He subsequently played the enigmatic lawyer Mr. Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects, and went on to appear in James and the Giant Peach, Dragonheart, Brassed Off, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet as Friar Lawrence, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Amistad, The Shipping News, Dark Water, The Constant Gardener, and Inception, in which he played industrialist Maurice Fischer. Steven Spielberg, who directed him in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, described him as the best actor in the world, a characterization Postlethwaite wryly deflected in interviews.

On television, Postlethwaite was notable for his portrayal of Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in ITV's Sharpe series, a role he identified as among his favorites. He cited his dynamic with co-star Sean Bean, rooted in mutual respect, as central to the performance. Author Bernard Cornwell subsequently shaped Hakeswill's character in later Sharpe novels to reflect Postlethwaite's interpretation of the role. Postlethwaite and Bean also appeared together in When Saturday Comes.

In 2003, Postlethwaite toured Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the one-man stage production Scaramouche Jones, a 90-minute piece in which he played a clown seeking his identity before dying at midnight. The production earned him a TMA Award for Best Actor nomination and the Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Solo Performance. It was directed by Rupert Goold, who also directed Postlethwaite's 2008 production of King Lear at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool and at the Young Vic in London, in which Postlethwaite played every character. He appeared in the climate change-themed film The Age of Stupid, which premiered in March 2009, and was vocal in his later years about the urgency of addressing climate change, installing a wind turbine at his home and writing on the subject in The Sun.

In 2010, while terminally ill, Postlethwaite appeared in three films: Clash of the Titans, in which he played Spyros; Inception; and The Town, in which he portrayed florist and crime boss Fergus "Fergie" Colm. His performance in The Town earned him a posthumous BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His final screen appearance was in Nick Hamm's Killing Bono, based on Neil McCormick's memoir, in a role written specifically to accommodate his illness. The film was released on 1 April 2011. He had been scheduled to appear in the BBC series Exile but withdrew due to declining health and was replaced by Jim Broadbent.

Postlethwaite was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours. He was a lifelong supporter of Liverpool F.C. and had been a smoker since the age of ten. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990. He began a relationship with former BBC producer Jacqueline Morrish in 1987, and the two married in 2003 at St Nicholas' Church in West Itchenor. They had a son, actor Billy Postlethwaite, born in 1989, and a daughter, born in 1996. Peter Postlethwaite died on 2 January 2011.