Sir Ian Holm, who played Jack the Ripper in the dark and sinister 2001 film adaptation of comic book tale ‘From Hell’, has died after battling Parkinson’s disease. He was 88.
The actor, who also appeared in ‘Alien’ and played Bilbo Baggins in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Hobbit’ trilogies, portrayed Queen Victoria’s physician Sir William Gull in ‘From Hell’.
The film centred around the Masonic conspiracy theory of the 1888 Jack the Ripper killings.
Holm’s unhinged and messianic performance was a triumph in a controversial telling of the Ripper mythos.
My own book ‘The Inevitable Jack the Ripper’ outlines why Walter Sickert, rather than Gull, was the killer. But the film succeeded in bringing to life an eerie and vibrantly violent East End - and Essex-born Holm made a powerful contribution to that.
May he rest in peace.
‘The Inevitable Jack the Ripper’ is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1724586793/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_HXl7Eb4YFFZWX
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