Tom Wilkinson (1948–2023) & Richard Rampton KC (1941–2023) – RIP

Really sad to hear this news yesterday, Tom Wilkinson was a terrific actor.

One of my favourite roles of his was Lord Cornwallis in 'The Patriot': "Tavington ... Damn him! Damn that man!". He was also a really great as Benjamin Franklin in John Adams. Playing both sides of that conflict.

He was also a terrific villain in 'Batman Begins'. A great add to any movie he was in. I'll always like the fact that he went against the general advice to change his last name to something more 'marketable'. 

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Another one of my favourite was the barrister in 'Denial'.

In a v. strange twist, Richard Rampton KC has also recently passed away. Rampton represented Lipstadt and Penguin against David Irving in a libel trial in the Royal Courts of Justice. It was subsequently adapted into a film and Tom Wilkinson played Rampton. So, here's goodbye to both gentleman. 

 

From The Daily Telegraph's obituary:

Richard Rampton, KC, who has died aged 82, was widely regarded as one of the greatest defamation lawyers of his generation; a deceptively avuncular yet formidably incisive advocate, he was also a leading authority on libel law as co-author of the seminal textbook on the subject, Duncan and Neill on Defamation.

The case was seen as extremely important for Jewish communities around the world, its significance reflected in the fact that it gave rise to three separate non-fiction books and some years later a film, Denial (2016), scripted by David Hare and directed by Mike Jackson. Rampton was played by the actor Tom Wilkinson, who brilliantly captured everything from the manner in which he walked to the way in which he smoked his Gitanes cigarettes, and the forensic and authoritative manner in which he conducted himself in court – refusing for instance to look Irving in the eye in order to better “get under his skin”.

As Rampton’s son, the journalist James Rampton, wrote later: “Even the way Wilkinson opens a very agreeable bottle of red over lunch and delivers the line ‘a famous Attorney-General once told me that one becomes a much more effective advocate after a few glasses of claret’ is eerily reminiscent of him.”