Aug 14 2005
 

By Tom Reilly

JAMES Booth, the actor famous for playing Private Henry Hook in the film Zulu, has died aged 77.

Booth, a former British Army Captain, starred in the 1964 war epic based on the battle of Rorke's Drift - the movie that also launched the career of Michael Caine.

He became well known to audiences as Henry "Hookie" Hook - a soldier who, despite not having any ammunition, fought the Zulus off with just his bayonet.

During the 1879 battle in South Africa, he also helped rescue eight patients in an Army hospital from certain death earning himself the Victoria Cross.

Booth was also known for his role as the cowardly ex-convict Ernie Miles in David Lynch's surreal Twin Peaks series in the early 1990s.

Booth was born in Croydon in 1927 and was married with two sons and two daughters.