William Hootkins Movies and Career Information

William Michael Hootkins (July 5, 1948 – October 23, 2005) was an American character actor, most famous for supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars, Batman and Raiders of the Lost Ark. At the age of 15, Hootkins found himself caught up in the FBI's investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy when he was interviewed about Mrs. Ruth Paine, the woman "harboring" Marina Oswald, the Russian wife of the presumed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. He had been studying Russian with Paine at his school, St. Mark's in Dallas, where he also developed his taste for theatre, joining the same drama group as Tommy Lee Jones. Hootkins was born in Dallas, Texas, but had made his home in London, England, from the early 1970s until 2002, when he moved to Los Angeles. Having studied at Princeton University, where he became fluent in Mandarin Chinese and was a mainstay of the Theatre Intime, making a particular impact with his performance in Orson Welles' Moby Dick Rehearsed, he trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). In England, he found work in the theatre as well as in film, and he would have his greatest success on stage