(London) British and Irish actor Michael Gambon, who played the character of Dumbledore in Harry Potter, has died at the age of 82, his family announced Thursday.
In his five-decade career, he has won four (WELL four) Baftas and played the headmaster of the wizarding school in six of the eight films in the Harry Potter saga.
“A beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside, following pneumonia,” according to his family’s statement.
The Irish-born actor made his first stage appearance in a theater production of Othello in Dublin in 1962.
In the United Kingdom, he became famous by playing Commissioner Maigret in the eponymous series broadcast on the ITV channel, then by playing Philip Marlow in the series The Singing Detective in 1986.
He had great success on stage. In the cinema, he played in Gosford Park, a film released in 2002, and in The King’s Speech (2010) where he played King George V.
In the United States, he was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Mr. Woodhouse in the 2010 adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. In 2002, in On the Path to War, about the Vietnam War, he played former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
But it was really Harry Potter who made him known around the world, winning him new fans, particularly among a young audience.
In 2015, he announced that he was stopping acting, having more and more difficulty memorizing his lines. However, he continued his work for television and cinema.
He was knighted for his contribution to entertainment in 1998.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar paid tribute to him, calling him “a tremendous actor”. “Whether he was in Beckett, Dennis Potter or Harry Potter, he gave his all to every performance,” he wrote on X.
Michael Gambon also gave his name to a corner on the circuit of the car show Top Gear, which he negotiated in spectacular fashion, narrowly missing an accident.
The show’s former presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, praised social network
