LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Robbie Coltrane: Pope Must Die
built 279 days ago
In 1980 Coltrane made his debut on television as Border Guard in BBC's mini-series 'The Lost Tribe', then made his big screen debut as Limousine driver in Mort en direct, La (1980). In 1981 he appeared in his first leading role as Detective Fritz Langley in Subway Riders (1981), by the famed underground director Amos Poe. From the 80s he became a well-known face through appearances in The Comic Strip series, then in "Alfresco" (1983) and Comic Strip movies The Supergrass (1985) and The Pope Must Die (1991) among other films. At that time Coltrane had trouble with alcohol, having a bottle of whiskey a day; in 1986 he flew to a clinic in Mexico and was treated for obesity. In 1987, his partner for 15 years, Paine, left him for good, leaving her portrait in Coltrain's barn.
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As the 90s dawned, Coltrane returned to comedy with a pair of humorous performances. In "Nuns on the Run" (1990), he was teamed with Eric Idle as gangsters evading capture by disguising themselves as religious women, while in "The Pope Must Die" (1991), he portrayed the pontiff who was targeted for murder. But 1993 marked a turning point for the actor when he was tapped to play Eddie 'Fitz' Fitzgerald, a fictional character who embraced life's vices and virtues with glee and excess, yet who was ... good at his job, in "Cracker". Amazing at it may seem now, but Coltrane was not the first choice for the role and only was cast after the producers' pick – Robert Lindsay – had to pass on the show. Coltrane and Fitz were a perfect match and the actor was rewarded for his efforts with three consecutive BAFTA TV awards as Best Actor. Even as he amassed prizes for the series, the actor continued to appear in films, playing everything from the husband of a woman who raises a gorilla in "Buddy" (1997) to an American newspaper editor in "Message in a Bottle" (1999).
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Coltrane's parallel careers, as a comedian and an actor, entered their final conflict in the early Nineties. The comedy got its ass kicked, big time. Coltrane suffered failure in both his movie efforts - Eric Idle's Nuns On The Run, and the Comic Strip's The Pope Must Die. In the meantime, though, he starred in his comic peer Lenny Henry's first serious effort, Alive And Kicking, playing a tough social worker threatening and cajoling a junkie (played by Henry himself) back onto the straight and narrow.
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