Pete Postltweite...Postltwaite...Posthththwaite...Pete Postlethwaite! I confess - this is a name impossible to pronounce for my poor German tongue. Time and time again I have tried: When I saw him in "Sharpe" as Obediah Hakeswill - a character so bad, that you begin to think: unspeakably bad! "Oubediahhh" as Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe would say - pronounced in his northern accent in a way only he can - bringing everything the man was into that one word. "Oubediahhh"... do you hear it?

He was the nemesis to Bean's Sharpe, an evil spirit. He was so bad, that it made me angry sometimes - nobody can be SO bad - but that was the way he was conceived by Bernard Cornwell, and that was the way Pete Postlethwaite played him - overplayed him, and also gave him a nervous twitch and an extra rough voice - too much, you would think, much to much - but at the same time so convincing that you would dream of him - and would awake drenched in sweat in the middle of the night...

He had also worked with Sean on stage in the plays "The Fair Maid of the West" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in the movie "When Saturday Comes", and they were friends in real life.

Pete Postlethwaite could often be seen in British films and TV productions and also in some big Hollywood movies. Always in very diverse roles. "In the Name of the Father" - I remember him in the role of the father - a decent man of some goodness - quietly played... unforgettably played.

Pete Postlethwaite, OBE, died on Sunday, January 2, 2011, at age 64 after a long fight with cancer.

rg/11.01.2011