British-Irish actor Michael Gambon, whose career was launched by his mentor Laurence Olivier, died on Thursday at the age of 82.
He was best known to the world for his role as the sage professor Albus Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” film series.
According to a family statement cited by PA Media, he died peacefully in the hospital.
Early in the 1960s, Gambon started acting on stage before transitioning to TV and film.
Notable film roles include a psychotic mob leader in Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” in 1989 and the elderly King George V in Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” in 2010.
But his most well-known performance was as Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” series, which he took over from the third film in the eight-movie series after he replaced the late Richard Harris in 2004.
Gambon downplayed the praise for his performance by claiming that he merely “played himself with a stuck-on beard and a long robe”.
Michael John Gambon was born on Oct. 19, 1940, in Dublin to a seamstress mother and an engineer father.
When Gambon was six years old, the family relocated to Camden Town in London as his father looked for employment in the post-war rebuilding of the city.
Gambon received a knighthood for his contributions to drama in 1998 after being named a Commander of the British Empire in 1992. He referred to it as “a nice little present” but did not use the title.
A mischievous personality, he often made up stories. For years he showed fellow actors a signed photograph of Robert De Niro which he had in fact inscribed himself before ever meeting the American actor.
He revealed in an episode of “The Late Late Show” in Ireland that he convinced his mother he was friends with the pope.
Gambon retired from acting in 2015 due to long-term memory issues, but he kept acting in movies until 2019. He told an interviewer in 2002 that his work made him feel “the luckiest man in the world”.
In 1962, Gambon married Anne Miller; the two had a son. Even though they never got divorced, he later had a second relationship with set designer Philippa Hart, who was 25 years his junior with whom he had two children.
Source-Reuters
