Ronald Pickup, Shakespearean actor who went on to find fame on the big and small screen – obituary His range of roles was vast, encompassing Beckett, O’Neill and Shaw, and at 71 he played a ladies’ man in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 25 February 2021 • 4:05pm Ronald Pickup on the red carpet before the premiere of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in 2015 Credit: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images Ronald Pickup, who has died aged 80, emerged as a young National Theatre star in the 1960s and appeared in several leading Shakespearean roles before moving successfully into film and television, most recently in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015).