http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/1/1092672479
His voice act of Gollum in BBC dramatization impressed many Japanese LOTR fans, when the drama had been broadcasted online one episode a week, just before the release of the FOTR film in Japan. Here is a log of chat when "Mount Doom" episode was broadcasted: http://live.2ch.net/weekly/kako/1016/10168/1016892729.html
Every participant cried "My precioussss!!!" at that deciding moment.
The impression of Woodthorpe's play was so strong (I can hear now his "scream, a thin, tearing sound, very horrible to hear") that I prefered his play to Andy Serkis's when I watched TT. I thought Serkis should babble more. But later I read Serkis's book "Gollum" and knew that Sekis had to speak while acting, to be more precise, crawling on all four, jumping, cowering, etc. It is impossible to babble like Woodthorpe's while acting hard, and I began to think that Serkis's version is more "realistic", because the real Gollum also babbled while moving rapidly.
Anyway, I like both Gollums and am sorry for the passing of the very talented actor.
Postscript: In UK he seems to be famous as a voice actor of Pigsy in the English dubbed "The Monkey", a 70's Japanese live action fantasy. I enjoyed the Japanese original in my childhood but don't remember Pigsy (played by T.Nishida and T.Hidari) so impressive. Probably Woodthorpe's voice act was more impressive than the original.
