Bernard Hill death: Lord of the Rings and Titanic star dies

The legendary Bernard Hill will be in attendance to meet fans and sign autographs. Bernard’s film roles range from King Theoden of Rohan in Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy to Captain Edward J Smith in Titanic. Bernard is also famous for playing Yosser Hughes in the TV drama Boys From The Blackstuff and starring with Pauline Collins in the classic 80’s movie Shirley Valentine. (Photo by Dave Etheridge-Barnes/Getty Images)

placeholder image — The legendary Bernard Hill will be in attendance to meet fans and sign autographs. Bernard’s film roles range from King Theoden of Rohan in Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy to Captain Edward J Smith in Titanic. Bernard is also famous for playing Yosser Hughes in the TV drama Boys From The Blackstuff and starring with Pauline Collins in the classic 80’s movie Shirley Valentine. (Photo by Dave Etheridge-Barnes/Getty Images)

Bernard Hill, who played King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings and Captain Smith in Titanic, has died aged 79.

The actor Bernard Hill has died at the age of 79, his agent has confirmed.

Hill, born in Manchester in 1944, was best known for playing King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Captain Edward Smith in Titanic. With those two performance, he had the distinction of being the only actor to have appeared in two films which won 11 Oscars.

His agent Lou Coulson told the PA news agency that he died in the early hours of Sunday. Hill came to prominence playing Yosser Hughes in Alan Bleasdale’s famous series Boys from the Blackstuff, who would frequently ask “gizza job”. This line would often be repeated by protesters, angry at Margaret Thatcher’s government. His performance as Hughes brought him wide recognition, however he said it almost “drove him to the edge of insanity”.

In the 1990s, Hill began appearing in films more regularly, starring in the Ghost and the Darkness opposite Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas, before appearing in James Cameron’s Titanic. Hill said later that “nobody knew it was going to be this big, people were really worried about it”.

He then appeared as King Theoden of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings. In an interview with the Norwich Film Festival in 2011, Hill said that working on the Peter Jackson masterpieces were his fondest memories. He said: “I loved every minute of every day that I was on Lord of the Rings.”

More recently, Hill appeared in the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy as the Duke of Norfolk. He is survived by his American wife Marianna and son Gabriel, who he lived with in Suffolk.