I was stricken when I read the news, earlier today, that actor Ian Holm—famous for his portrayal of Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films—died yesterday of complications "related to Parkinson's disease" at the ripe old age of 88.
Holm was a massive Shakespearean who was easily on par with other Royal Shakespeare Company alums like Dame Judi Dench, Sir Patrick Stewart, and Sir Ian McKellen. He apparently suffered from stage fright, but this didn't prevent him from giving a world-shaking theatrical performance as King Lear—a performance I'd have killed to watch (Holm did the play live on stage in 1997; a version was later broadcast via PBS in 1998 or 1999, so it might be available on video... and I've just found it on Amazon, so it's now on my Amazon Prime Video Watch List; if I can find a way to buy it, I will).
I remember Holm in the role of Ash the malevolent android in 1979's "Alien," as veteran warrior Fluellen in Kenneth Branagh's 1989 "Henry V," and as the humorously-feckless-but-tragically-doomed Polonius in the 1990 Mel Gibson/Franco Zeffirelli production of "Hamlet." Holm was humble enough to play roles that could be almost self-parodic, such as his humorous role as a harried man of the cloth in 1997's kooky/corny/campy "The Fifth Element." Alec Guinness once said that Holm had given a performance in a Chekov play that he (Guinness) would like to have given. Kenneth Branagh once said that acting alongside Holm was "like playing a racket game with someone very much more skilled. One was never sure how the ball would come back, but it would always be exciting and unexpected."
I am genuinely sad to learn of Sir Ian Holm's death. (He became Sir Ian when he was knighted in 1998.) The man has a huge résumé that no brief obituary can ever adequately summarize. He was equally at home working with either Shakespeare or Harold Pinter (who actually wrote Holm a play to persuade the stage-frightened actor to come back to the theater). I'll miss his expressiveness, his energy, his wit, and his marvelous skill. The part of me that still sometimes yearns to pursue acting can credit Holm, to some degree, with the inspiration to breathe life into and incarnate beautiful, terrible words and beautiful, terrible worlds.
RIP, Sir Ian. You will be sorely missed, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
ululate!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
When I first saw the news I was surprised how old he was. I had no idea how extensive his resume was beyond the role I knew him for, that being Mr. Baggins, until I read your post this morning. Thanks for sharing that fascinating history.
And after all these years of reading your blog, I didn't recall you ever having mentioned a desire to be an actor. What's stopping you?
"What's stopping you?"
Laziness, pragmatism, and lack of confidence, I guess. I've chosen to follow a path that has led me into the thickets of foreign-language teaching, and I've led a parallel life as a blogger, so my most plausible path ahead is as some sort of writer. Switching tracks to acting would involve an effort that, at my age, I'm too lazy and timid to make. Actors—like all artists—also have to fight a steep uphill battle to succeed, so my inner pragmatist thinks it's better to remain on my current path, which is relatively lucrative compared to what I'd been doing in previous jobs.
I can't recall whether I've written explicitly about my own acting-related aspirations, but surely I've shown a love for theatricality throughout my years of blogging: photos of me making goofy, frog-eyed faces, movie reviews in which I lavish praise on talented actors, etc. There were certainly hints and implications, even if there weren't any overt declarations.
Some history: I took drama classes in middle school; I did skits in high school; I took two courses in French theater while in college and was involved in two largish theater productions: one was of Paul Claudel's La ville, a metaphorical/metaphysical play about Claudel's conversion to Catholicism; the other was Obaldia's L'aveugle (the blind man), about a possibly insane blind man who rants about the madness of society. (I was the titular blind man. We did the performance in a black-box theater, and my drama prof was reduced to tears by my performance.) I've always had the acting bug, but in recent years, I've done much to tamp that urge down, maybe because I often find myself surrounded by larger, more inflated egos, and as an introvert, my natural inclination among more expressive, assertive people is to become quieter and fade into the background.
When I'm king of my own little hill—such as on my blog—I can be my extraverted self. As for pursuing acting... well, I'm looking into what it might take to get into small-scale video production (e.g., podcasting). I don't know whether I have anything deep or important to say, so I might start off with short-burst videos that are no longer than three minutes. None of that will start until next year, though, if it starts at all. We'll see. And we'll see whether it blows up into something much bigger.
Fascinating. And as you say those other creative outlets can satisfy the urge. Still, maybe somewhere near your retirement home in Wyoming, there will be a community theatre that needs a distinguished older man to play those hard to fill roles.
Post a Comment