Global Courant
The Irish actor, known for his role as Albus Dumbledore, died after falling ill with pneumonia, the family statement said.
Michael Gambon, who played the wise Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film franchise, has died at the age of 82.
Gambon began acting on stage in the early 1960s and later moved to television and film. Notable film roles include a mafia 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 best-known role was that of Dumbledore, a character he took over in the third part of the eight-film series after replacing the late Richard Harris in 2004.
Gambon downplayed praise for his performance, saying he was simply playing himself “with a stuck beard and a long robe”.
Michael John Gambon was born in Dublin on October 19, 1940 to a seamstress mother and an engineer father. The family moved to Camden Town in London when Gambon was six, as his father sought work in the city’s post-war reconstruction.
Gambon left school at the age of 15 to begin an engineering apprenticeship and by the age of 21 he was fully qualified. However, he was also a member of an amateur theater group and always knew he would act, he told The Herald newspaper in 2004.
He was inspired by American actors Marlon Brando and James Dean, who he believed reflected the fears of teenage boys.
Gambon built his reputation on stage in the 1960s. The 1980s attracted more attention with the lead role in the 1986 TV show The Singing Detective, in which he played a writer suffering from a debilitating skin condition whose imagination provided the only escape from his pain. The performance earned him one of his four BAFTAs.
He also won three Olivier Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Gosford Park and The King’s Speech.
Gambon was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 1992 and knighted in 1998 for services to drama, something he called “a nice gift” – although he did not use the title.
He was a mischievous personality and often made up stories. For years he showed fellow actors an autographed photo of Robert De Niro that he had signed himself before ever meeting the American actor.
He revealed on an episode of The Late Late Show in Ireland that he convinced his mother he was friends with the Pope.
Gambon retired from the stage in 2015 after suffering from long-term memory problems, but continued to act on screen until 2019. He told an interviewer in 2002 that his work made him feel like “the luckiest man in the world”.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24961130/1705119879.jpg?w=150&resize=150,150&ssl=1 "Watch Linda Yaccarino’s wild interview at the Code Conference")
