Actor Joss Ackland, best known for playing a corrupt diplomat in Lethal Weapon 2, has died

“He will be remembered as one of Britain’s most talented and beloved actors,“, according to the French news agency AFP, the actor’s family wrote, which also announced that he said goodbye on Sunday.

From Great Britain to Africa and back
Acting career by Joss Ackland lasted as long as seven decades, and he himself attributed his achievements in television, film, theater and even in musicals to his initial acting difficulties. It was because of the difficulties in the first decade of his acting career, which began in the mid-1940s, that he and his wife Rosemary, who was also an actress, moved to a tea plantation in today’s Malawi, Africa.

In 1957 he returned to the UK with a renewed determination to succeed as an actor and joined London’s Old Vic alongside actors such as Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Tom Courtenay. He appeared regularly on the small screen and the big screen in the 60s and 70s.

He played his most famous role on the big screen in 1989 in the film Lethal Weapon 2 with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover starring as corrupt South African diplomat Arjen Rudd.

In 1979, ob To Alec Guinness starred in a spy television series Boilermaker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy based on the novel of the same name John le Carré. Over the years, he portrayed, among other things, the vengeful mafia don v Sicilianwhich he published in 1987 based on the book proposal of the same name Maria Puza directed Michael Cimino. In the same year, he also appeared in a film A love safarinamely in the role of a wealthy English aristocrat accused of murder in Kenya.

In 1990, he also appeared in a hit movie The Hunt for Red October directed John McTiernan, in which he portrayed the Soviet ambassador. Ackland can also be seen playing a murderous hitchhiker in the surreal 1987 music video for the song’s cover You Were Always On My Mind performed by a duo Pet Shop Boys.

A multitude of difficult life trials
Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland, as his full name read, was born on February 29, 1928 in the western London suburb of North Kensington. He experienced many trials in his personal life. During the fire that destroyed the family home in 1963, the actor’s wife Rosemary was seriously injured by jumping out of the window. In 1982, their 29-year-old son Paul died of a heroin overdose. Seven children were born to the couple in a marriage that lasted 51 years. Rosemary, who suffered from motor neurone disease in her old age, died in 2002.

Auckland retired in 2014 and enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As reported by AFP, he also died peacefully at home, surrounded by family members.