Joshua Shintani, Star Of Shallow Hal, Dies At 32
Joshua Shintani, the ukulele-playing teenager from ‘Shallow Hal’, has died at the age of 32.
Shintani, who went by the nickname Li'iBoy died in Kauai, an island off Hawaii, after being rushed to hospital last week.
According to TMZ, doctors found that he was suffering from advanced pneumonia.
Though he only appeared in one movie, the Farrelly brothers-directed comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black, he made quite an impression.
He memorably sat beside Seinfeld star Jason Alexander on the bench outside the Peace Corps office, and played the song 'Never Forget Where I’m From’.
Peter Farrelly was on holiday in Hawaii when he first saw Shintani, who was at high school at the time, playing his ukulele outside the public library.
“This red rental car comes by and the man driving passed me and stared at me and gave me this look, his mouth was open,” Joshua said back in 2002.
“All of a sudden he turns around and stops at the corner where I was at and he asked me to come over, and asked me if I want to be in a movie. And I was like, what?'”
He was flown in to Los Angeles for a screen test and got the part straight away.
The film centred around Jack Black’s character Hal, a shallow man fixated on physical beauty to is hypnotised, after which he only sees inner beauty, falling in love with the morbidly obese Rosemary, played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
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Image credits: Rex Features
