Stephen Hibbert has died. An actor and screenwriter with a decidedly eclectic resumé, Hibbert’s most famous onscreen role was one where audiences never saw his face: As the instantly attention-grabbing, sexually deranged “Gimp” in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. In his day job, meanwhile, Hibbert cut a much more comedic, and less extreme path: Writing for Late Night With David Letterman, on cartoons like Animaniacs and Tiny Toons Adventures, and co-writing infamous Saturday Night Live-adjacent flop It’s Patwith his former wife, Julia Sweeney. Hibbert’s death, from a heart attack, was first reported by TMZ. He was 68.
In trying to make sense of the various odd threads of Hibbert’s career, it’s important to know that he (like Sweeney) was a member of famed Los Angeles improv comedy troupe The Groundlings, appearing in shows with folks like Jon Lovitz, Kathy Griffin, Phil Hartman, and more during a run in the late 1980s. That notably included a period where Tarantino became a regular fan of the group, leading the writer/director to cast five different members (including Griffin and Sweeney) in 1994’s Pulp Fiction. Hibbert got, decidedly, the weirdest role of the lot: The Gimp, the leather-masked sex slave kept by Peter Greene and Duane Whitaker in the most bizarrely violent of the film’s various plot tributaries. In recalling the job in an interview with AARP later in life, Hibbert noted that he auditioned for the part by performing with Tarantino himself: “Quentin and I acted out a master and slave scenario for the casting director. 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.” (He also defended his ’90s fitness regimen, noting, when asked about The Gimp’s somewhat paunchy physique, “I’ll have you know I had on a little fat suit under all that leather gear.”)
Outside the leather, Hibbert also (loosely) collaborated with Tarantino on another project—It’s Pat, which Tarantino did an uncredited, but well-documented, writing pass on. Admitting that the film—originally commissioned by Pat-hungry executives at Fox, but eventually ending up at Disney—”Didn’t turn out as well as any of us would have liked,” Hibbert still spoke fondly of many of its performances, saying, “I’m actually pretty proud of much of the movie, and think it’s fair to say it’s better than you remember it, that is (in the unlikely event ) you’ve actually seen it.” (Audiences and critics did not agree; Hibbert was saved the debatable honor of adding “Razzie-winner” to his list of career accolades mostly by the fact that the movie was released in the same year as Showgirls.)
Regardless, Hibbert continued to work, both in front of and behind the camera, through the 2010s. He had small parts in two projects from fellow Groundling Mike Myers (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me—he’s the “inept guard” Heather Graham fatally flashes—and The Cat In The Hat), and wrote for shows like MadTV and Boy Meets World. He also happily embraced his most famous, if also slightly anonymous, role, attending Pulp Fiction fan events and handing out 8×10 glossies of himself as The Gimp. Speaking of the job in 2014, Hibbert said, “I’m sure for many people Pulp Fiction is a highlight, if not the highlight, of their careers. I know that no matter what else I do in show business, I’ll never have a cooler credit.”