The actor Sir Michael Gambon has failed aged 82, his family has said. He was best known for playing Professor Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter flicks.
The Dublin- born star worked in television, film, theatre and radio over his six- decade career. He won four Baftas. His widow Lady Gambon and son Fergus said their” cherished hubby and father” failed peacefully in sanitarium 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 veritably first stage performance in Ireland, in a product of Othello in Dublin in 1962.
His career took off when he came one 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 products. magnific trickster’ He played French operative Jules Maigret in ITV series Maigret and was also known for his part as Philip Marlow in Dennis Potter’s The Singing operative on the BBC.
Sir Michael took on the part of Dumbledore- headmaster of wizarding academy Hogwarts- in the megahit Harry Potter series, grounded on JK Rowling’s novels, after the death of Richard Harris in 2003.
Fiona Shaw, who played Petunia Dursley in the flicks, told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One” He varied his career remarkably and noway judged what he was doing, he just played.”
She said she’d always suppose of him” as a trickster, just a brilliant, magnific trickster”, adding” With textbook, there was nothing like him. He could do anything.”
Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the series, wrote on social media” I learned what amusement could be from Michael in The Singing operative- complex, vulnerable and hugely mortal. ” The topmost exhilaration of being in the Potter flicks was that he knew my name and participated his intrepid, unprintable sense of fun with me.”
Dame Eileen Atkins, a longstanding friend of Sir Michael, told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One he was” a great actor, but he always pretended he did not take it veritably seriously” and that he’d amazing stage presence. ” He just had to walk on stage and he commanded the whole followership incontinently,” she said.”
There was commodity veritably sweet about him, this huge man who could look veritably shocking but there was commodity incredibly sweet inside Michael.” She added” I’ll always flash back that man.” The Great Gambon’ His other film work includes the big screen adaption of Dad’s Army, Gosford Park and the King’s Speech, in which he portrayed King George V, father of the stammering King George VI.
He was nominated for Emmy awards for his part as Mr Woodhouse in an adaption of Jane Austen’s Emma in 2010, and for playing President Lyndon B Johnson in Path to War in 2002.
He also got a Tony nomination in 1997 for a part in David Hare play Skylight. He was knighted for services to the entertainment assiduity in 1998. Although Irish- born, he’d come a British citizen in his nonage.
The actor, known as” The Great Gambon” in acting circles, had last appeared on stage in 2012 in a London product of Samuel Beckett’s play All That Fall. Taoiseach( Irish high minister) Leo Varadkar paid homage, saying” A great actor. Whether performing in Beckett, Dennis Potter or Harry Potter, he gave his all to every performance.”
Sir Michael Gambon was one of Britain’s most protean players. While he achieved success on both television and in the cinema, it was the theatre that was his topmost love.
He played numerous of the great Shakespearean corridor, appeared on television as Inspector Maigret and formerly auditioned for the part of James Bond.
And he gained an transnational following when he took over the part of Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter flicks. Michael John Gambon was born in Dublin on 19 Oct 1940, the son of an mastermind and a needlewoman.
When he was five his father moved to London to work on the reconstruction of the capital after the blitz and Gambon attended St Aloysius’ College in Highgate before the family moved again, this time to Kent.
