A versatile character player, the Manchester-born Bernard Hill has been delivering fine performances on stage, on TV and in films since his stage debut in Willy Russell's "John, Paul, George, Ringo . . . and Bert" in 1974. The actor earned widespread attention in his homeland for his portrayal of a road worker in the black comedy "Boys from the Black Stuff" (BBC, 1982).

International audiences and movie buffs may recall Hill as the reticent, reluctant computer systems analyst and hero of "Bellman & True" (1987), the coroner investigating the deaths of three men in "Drowning By Numbers" (1988; released in the USA in 1991), the boorish husband of "Shirley Valentine" (1989) and Dr. Livingston in "Mountains of the Moon" (1990). More recently, he dazzled as the eccentric Flint in "Madagascar Skin" (1995) and anchored "The Mill on the Floss" (PBS, 1997) as the father whose pride leads to tragedy. In "Titanic" (1997), Hill was almost unrecognizable behind snow white hair and beard as the doomed ship's captain. He found subsequent high-profile roles in films the fantasy genre, playing wizened rulers in "The Scorpion King" (2002) and two films in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Two Towers" (2002) and "Return of the King" (2003).