The film community has lost a beloved star.
Bernard Hill, who played Captain Edward Smith in Titanic and King Théoden in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, has died. He was 79.
The British actor passed away early May 5, his agent confirmed to the BBC, adding that the star’s fiancée Alison and his son Gabriel were with him at the time. The cause of his death was not released.
Hill, originally from Manchester, England, began his onscreen acting career in his native U.K. in the late ’70s, appearing mostly on British TV shows such as Crown Court. He got cast in more films in the ’80s and ’90s, with roles in movies such as Gandhi and The Ghost and the Darkness, which also stars Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas, before starring with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in James Cameron‘s Oscar-winning film Titanic, released in 1997.
In 2002, he joined Dwayne Johnson in the movie The Scorpion King, playing Philos, and made his debut as King Théoden in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second film in Peter Jackson‘s trilogy, based on the books by the late J. R. R. Tolkien.
