‘Full Monty’ star Tom Wilkinson dies at 75
Two-time Oscar-nominated actor Tom Wilkinson, who starred in The Full Monty, a film about a group of unemployed steel workers who launch new careers as strippers, died on Saturday aged 75.
The British actor’s death was confirmed in a statement released by his agent on behalf of his family.
“It is with great sadness that the family of Tom Wilkinson announce that he died suddenly at home on Dec 30. His wife and family were with him.”
Among his many accolades was an Academy Award nomination for In the Bedroom in 2001 and another for a supporting role in Michael Clayton in 2007.
He most recently reunited with his Full Monty co-stars Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy in a Disney+ series of the same name.
The original 1997 smash hit about an unlikely group of men stripping won an Oscar for best original musical or comedy score and was nominated in three others categories, including best picture and best director.
Wilkinson played Gerald Cooper, an ex-foreman who was recruited to help the unemployed men dance. The actor also took home a Best Supporting Actor Bafta for the role.
Carlyle paid tribute to his costar, calling him a “real titan of an actor, one of the greats of not only his, but of any generation”.
Wilkinson, who was born in Leeds to a family of farmers, studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and racked up more than 130 film and television credits, including Batman Begins, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Shakespeare in Love.
While working on the British mini-series First Among Equals in 1986, he met actress Diana Hardcastle, who he married in 1988. The couple had two daughters.
In 2005, Wilkinson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama.