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Ian Holm, perhaps best known to genre fans for his roles in the original Alien and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has died aged 88.

The news was passed to the Guardian newspaper by Holm’s agent. “It is with great sadness that the actor Sir Ian Holm CBE passed away this morning at the age of 88. He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer.”

His role as Ash in Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien cemented a place in film history,  and he was Oscar-nominated for his role in Chariots of Fire two years later. He played Bilbo Baggins for Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films, having played Frodo for the epic BBC Radio 4 version in 1981, and worked with Terry Gilliam playing Napoleon in Time Bandits and Mr Kurtzman in Brazil. Other genre roles included Dreamchild as “Lewis Carroll”, Baron Alphonse Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Father Cornelius in The Fifth Element.