We have tragic news to report out of Hollywood today.
Stephen Hibbert — a character actor who appeared in some of the biggest films of the 1990s — has passed away.
He was just 68 years old.
News of Hibbert’s death comes courtesy of a statement from his three children, Ronnie, Rosalind, and Greg.
“Our father, Stephen Hibbert, passed away unexpectedly this week. His life was full of love and dedication to the arts and his family. He will be dearly missed by many,” they wrote.
According to a report from TMZ, Hibbert died of a heart attack in Denver on Monday.
After starting his career as a writer for shows like Late Night with David Letterman, Mad TV, and Boy Meets World, Hibbert made the acquaintance of Quentin Tarantino while they were both performing with improv troupe the Groundlings.
“Quentin and I acted out a master and slave scenario for the casting director,” he recalled in a 2024 interview with AARP (via Page Six).
“He bossed me around the office and I groveled. I felt like I’d been training all of my work life for an opportunity to audition for a role like that. Whee!”
That performance led to Hibbert’s most iconic role:
Though he never showed his face and didn’t have a single line of dialogue, Hibbert made quite an impression as “the Gimp” in the 1994 classic Pulp Fiction.
More than 30 years later, Hibbert’s scene remains one of the most referenced and parodied in the entire film.
Later in his career, Hibbert worked as a “script doctor,” punching up the screenplays of such modern classics as Shrek and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
He also had a small role in the latter film.
Again, Hibbert was not exactly an A-list housegold name. But his impressive contributions to some of the biggest film and television projects of the 1990s and 2000s deserve to be acknowledged.
Our thoughts go out to Hibbert’s friends and family during his incredibly difficult time.