Actor Stephen Hibbert, who was best known for playing The Gimp in Pulp Fiction, has died at the age of 68.
The star, who also appeared in films like Austin Powers and The Cat in the Hat, died on Monday of a heart attack.
His children, Ronnie, Rosalind and Greg shared an emotional statement following their father’s death.
‘Our father, Stephen Hibbert, passed away unexpectedly this week,’ they told TMZ.
‘His life was full of love and dedication to the arts and his family. He will be dearly missed by many.’
Originally born in the UK, Hibbert began his showbiz career in the 1980s, working on Late Night With Letterman.
Over the years, he wrote for a number of shows, including Animaniacs, Boy Meets World, and Darkwing Duck.
He also co-wrote the SNL spin-off film Pat: The Movie, starring Julia Sweeney, Dave Foley, Charles Rocket, and Kathy Griffin.
However, his most iconic role was unarguably in Pulp Fiction, where he played the terrifying Gimp who terrorises Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames.
While he only appears for a few minutes in the film and doesn’t say a single line, fans were shocked by his menacing attire and sadistic behaviour.
Stephen was a member of an improv group known as The Groundlings when he was cast in the movie.
Apparently, Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino would watch them each week, and he eventually asked them to audition.
‘He was pretty much the same then as now, hilarious, endlessly curious and passionate about film,’ Hibbert told AARP in 2024:
‘Quentin, Julia and I were moviegoing buddies and sometime collaborators already, so he asked us to audition for Pulp Fiction.’
According to Stephen, once they got to Quentin’s office, he had to get into character as The Gimp relatively quickly.
‘He bossed me around the office, and I grovelled,’ Stephen said. ‘I felt like I’d been training all of my work life for an opportunity to audition for a role like that.’
Stephen had nothing but kind words for his co-star Bruce Willis, explaining how ‘at the end of the day he’d invite me, Duane Whitaker, Peter Greene and Ving Rhames over to his swanky, state-of-the-art trailer for drinks. He was totally cool.’
Sadly, Stephen isn’t the only member of the Pulp Fiction cast to die this year. Peter Greene, who played Zed, died from an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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