Irish-born actor Michael Gambon was knighted for his illustrious career on stage and screen, playing Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight films , winning the admiration of a new generation of moviegoers. “Harry Potter” movie, already dead. He is 82 years old.
The actor died Wednesday of “pneumonia,” his publicist Claire Dobbs said Thursday.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Sir Michael Gambon. Michael, a much-loved husband and father, passed away peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside,” his family said in a statement. said in a statement.
While the role of Porter raised Gambon’s international profile and won him a large audience, he has long been known as one of Britain’s leading actors. His work spans television, theatre, film and radio, and he has starred in dozens of films over the decades, from Gosford Park and The King’s Speech to the animated family film Paddington. He most recently appeared in the 2019 Judy Garland biopic Judy.
In 1998, Gambon was knighted for his services to the entertainment industry.
The role of the beloved Professor Dumbledore was originally played by another Irish-born actor, Richard Harris. By the time Harris died in 2002, two films in the series had been produced, and Gambon took over, playing roles ranging from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Part 2″ role.
He once admitted that he had not read any of J.K. Rowling’s best-selling books and believed it was safer to follow the script rather than be influenced by the books. But that doesn’t stop him from embodying the spirit of a powerful wizard who fights evil to protect his students.
Co-stars often described Gambon as a playful, funny man who was self-deprecating about his talents. Actress Helen Mirren fondly recalled his “natural Irish sense of humor – naughty but very, very funny”.
Fiona Shaw, who played Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter series, recalled Gambon telling her how important acting was to his life.
“He said to me one time in the car, ‘I know I talk about this and that a lot, but really, at the end of the day, it’s just the show,'” Shaw told the BBC on Thursday. “I think he always pretended not to take it seriously, but he took it very seriously.”
Irish President Michael D. Higgins praised Gambon’s “extraordinary talent,” calling him “one of the finest actors of his generation.”
Gambon was born in Dublin on October 19, 1940, grew up in London, and initially trained as an engineer, following in his father’s footsteps. He had no formal theater training and is said to have started working in the theater as a set decorator. He made his acting debut in the play Othello in Dublin.
He got his first big break in 1963, playing a small role in the National Theater Company’s debut production of Hamlet, directed by the legendary Laurence Olivier.
Gambon quickly established himself as a distinguished stage actor and received critical acclaim for his performance in John Dexter’s The Life of Galileo Galilei. He has been frequently nominated for awards, winning the Laurence Olivier Award three times and the Critics Circle Drama Award twice.
Gambon is a versatile actor who has also won four coveted BAFTA Awards for his television work.
He became a household name in the UK in 1986 after starring in the BBC drama The Singing Detective, written by Dennis Potter, which is considered a classic of British television. Gambon won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for this role.
Gambon was also nominated for an Emmy Award for his most recent television work – playing Mr Wodehouse in the 2010 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, and playing the former President of the United States in 2002’s War Road Lyndon Johnson.
Gambon is a versatile actor, but he once told the BBC that he prefers to play “villain roles”. He played gangster Eddie Temple in the British crime thriller Layer Cake (a New York Times review of the film said Gambon was “really brilliant”), and in Peter Greenaway’s The Chef, the Thief, He “The Thief” as a satanic crime boss. Wife and her lover. “
He also played George V in the 2010 drama film The King’s Speech. In 2015, he returned to work JK Rowlingstarring in the TV adaptation of her non-Potter novel The Casual Vacancy .
“I absolutely loved working with him,” Rowling posted on X (formerly Twitter). “I first met him in King Lear in 1982, and if you had told me then that this wonderful actor would be in anything I wrote, I would have thought you were crazy.”
Due to his advanced age, Gambon had trouble remembering his lines in front of an audience and retired from the stage in 2015. He once told The Sunday Times Magazine: “It’s a terrible thing to admit but I can’t do it. It breaks my heart.”
Gambon has always been very protective of himself when it comes to his private life. He married Anne Miller and had one son, Fergus. He later had two sons with set designer Philippa Hart.
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