Actor -- via the Guardian. One of my all-time favorite performers, he was typed as Cockney lads, gangsters, and detectives, but his emotional range, expressiveness, and subtlety was far beyond those seeming limitations. Best roles: of course, his star-making turn as Arthur Parker in the BBC-TV original version of "Pennies from Heaven"; Shand in "The Long Good Friday"; Iago in the otherwise not-so-great BBC-TV "Othello"; Eddie Valiant in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"; and Micawber in Simon Curtis' "David Copperfield." My dream Brit cast for a parody remake of "The Ten Commandments" always featured Bob as a profanity-spewing Pharaoh, Michael Caine as Moses, and Sean Connery as God.
