Harry Potter actor Sir Michael Gambon dies aged 82

The actor Sir Michael Gambon has died aged 82, his family has said.

He was best known for playing Professor Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter films.

The Dublin-born star worked in TV, film, theatre and radio over his six-decade career. He won four Baftas.

His widow Lady Gambon and son Fergus said their “beloved husband and father” died peacefully in hospital with his family by his side, following a bout of pneumonia.

Sir Michael’s family had moved to London when he was a child but he made his very first stage performance in Ireland, in a production of Othello in Dublin in 1962. His career took off when he became one of the original members of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre acting company in London. He went on to win three Olivier awards for performances in National Theatre productions.

Dame Helen Mirren – who starred with him in 1989’s The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, led tributes to her “naughty but very, very funny” friend.

In an interview for this weekend’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Dame Helen recalled how he had kept her “constantly in laughter” during filming and also when they appeared on stage in Antony and Cleopatra seven years previously. She added that in recent times the two had discussed growing older, and how that affected their work:

Sir Michael was “utterly realistic” about his situation, she said. “He found it increasingly difficult to remember lines, which I have the greatest of sympathy with, and that sort of took him away from theatre,” she said.

He played French detective Jules Maigret in ITV series Maigret and was also known for his role as Philip Marlow in Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective on the BBC.

Sir Michael took on the role of Dumbledore – headmaster of wizarding school Hogwarts – in the hit Harry Potter series, based on JK Rowling’s novels, after the death of Richard Harris in 2003.

Fiona Shaw, who played Petunia Dursley in the films, told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: “He varied his career remarkably and never judged what he was doing, he just played.” She said she would always think of him “as a trickster, just a brilliant, magnificent trickster”, adding: “With text, there was nothing like him. He could do anything.”

(BBC)