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William Hootkins

William Hootkins

Actor · 1948 – 2005 · Dallas, Texas, USA

William Michael Hootkins was born on July 5, 1948, in Dallas, Texas. He moved to London, England in the early '70s and lived there up until 2002. Hootkins was an actor at Theatre Intime while attending Princeton University where he learned how to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese. He also trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, and attended St. Marks, where he was in the same theater group as Tommy Lee Jones. The imposingly bulky and heavyset Hootkins first began acting in films and TV shows alike in the mid '70s. His more noteworthy parts include the first of the Rebel fighter pilots to get killed while attacking the Death Star in "Star Wars", scientist Topol's bumbling oaf assistant in "Flash Gordon", Major Eaton, sent by the US government in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", one of Rod Steiger's demented sons in "American Gothic", a corrupt police lieutenant in "Batman", a disgusting sleazy voyeur in "Hardware", a coarse South African police chief in "Dust Devil", the mysterious and duplicitous Mr. X in "Hear My Song", a haughty corporate executive in "Death Machine", Santa Claus in "Like Father, Like Santa", and an opera-singing vampire in "The Breed". Moreover, Hootkins had small parts in two "Pink Panther" pictures: he's a taxi driver in both "The Trail of the Pink Panther" and "Curse of the Pink Panther". Among the TV shows he did guest spots on are "Yanks Go Home", "Agony", "Play for Today", "Tales of the Unexpected", "The Life and Times of David Lloyd George", "Brett Maverick", "Cagney and Lacey", "Taxi", "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense", "Poirot", "Chancer", "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", "The Tomorrow People", "The West Wing", and "Absolute Power". Hootkins received many accolades for his outstanding performance as Sir Alfred Hitchcock in Terry Johnson's hit play "Hitchcock Blonde". In addition to his substantial film and TV credits, Hootkins was also a popular and prolific voice artist who recorded dozens of plays for BBC Radio Drama; he supplied the voices for such iconic individuals as Orson Welles, J. Edgar Hoover, and Winston Churchill. William Hootkins died of pancreatic cancer on October 23, 2005. IMDb Mini Biography

Movies24

  • Movie8.2

    Star Wars

    1977 · 22K votes

  • Movie7.9

    Raiders of the Lost Ark

    1981 · 13K votes

  • Movie7.2

    Batman

    1989 · 8.8K votes

  • Movie7.0

    A River Runs Through It

    1992 · 1.2K votes

  • Movie4.6
  • Movie6.3

    Flash Gordon

    1980 · 1.1K votes

  • Movie5.1

    Trail of the Pink Panther

    1982 · 337 votes

  • Movie4.6

    Curse of the Pink Panther

    1983 · 211 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Hardware

    1990 · 358 votes

  • Movie6.7

    White Nights

    1985 · 153 votes

  • Movie4.9

    The Island of Dr. Moreau

    1996 · 585 votes

  • Movie4.5

    Die unendliche Geschichte III - Rettung aus Phantásien

    The NeverEnding Story III

    1994 · 440 votes

  • Movie5.8

    Death Machine

    1995 · 144 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Funny Bones

    1995 · 54 votes

  • Movie5.6

    Hanover Street

    1979 · 113 votes

  • Movie4.4

    Gospa

    The Miracle of Medjugorje

    1995 · 9 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Twilight's Last Gleaming

    1977 · 82 votes

  • Movie5.4

    Haunted Honeymoon

    1986 · 175 votes

  • Movie6.0

    The Lady Vanishes

    1979 · 72 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Bad Timing

    1980 · 172 votes

  • Movie5.8

    Valentino

    1977 · 49 votes

  • Movie5.7

    Sphinx

    1981 · 32 votes

  • Movie5.8
  • Movie6.1

    Water

    1985 · 38 votes

Series23

  • TV8.3

    The West Wing

    1999 · 610 votes

  • TV7.0

    NOVA

    1974 · 141 votes

  • TV8.2

    Agatha Christie's Poirot

    1989 · 584 votes

  • TV5.2

    BBC Play of the Month

    1965 · 8 votes

  • TV6.6

    American Playhouse

    1982 · 8 votes

  • TV6.7

    Tales of the Unexpected

    1979 · 54 votes

  • TV7.3

    Taxi

    1978 · 182 votes

  • TV7.1

    Remington Steele

    1982 · 147 votes

  • TV7.0

    Cagney & Lacey

    1982 · 74 votes

  • TV7.0

    Bergerac

    1981 · 25 votes

  • TV7.0

    Playhouse

    1974 · 1 votes

  • TV7.8

    Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

    1994 · 434 votes

  • TV8.0

    Blackadder

    1983 · 576 votes

  • TV8.2

    Justice League

    2001 · 626 votes

  • TV6.5
  • TV6.8

    Iron Man

    1994 · 121 votes

  • TV6.5
  • TV6.2

    Van der Valk

    1972 · 10 votes

  • TV7.5

    The New Statesman

    1987 · 54 votes

  • TV6.5
  • TV7.3

    Lytton's Diary

    1985 · 3 votes

  • TV10.0

    Extreme Machines

    1997 · 1 votes

  • TV6.9