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| Richard Harris |
Richard St John Harris (1930-2002) was an Irish actor, singer, songwriter, producer, director and writer. He appeared on stage and in many films, appearing as Frank Machin in This Sporting Life, and King Arthur in the 1967 film Camelot and the subsequent 1981 revival of the show. He played an aristocrat and prisoner in A Man Called Horse (1970), a gunfighter in Clint Eastwood's Western film Unforgiven (1992), Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator (2000), and Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films: the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Harris had a top ten hit in the United Kingdom and United States with his 1968 recording of Jimmy Webb's song MacArthur Park.
Harris was schooled by the Jesuits at Crescent College. A talented rugby player, he was on several Munster Junior and Senior Cup teams for Crescent, and played for Garryowen. Harris' athletic career was cut short when he caught tuberculosis in his teens. After recovering from tuberculosis, Harris moved to Britain, wanting to become a director. He could not find any suitable training courses, and enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) to learn acting. He had failed an audition at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and had been rejected by the Central School of Speech and Drama, because they felt he was too old at 24.
More information: Biography.com
While still a student, Harris rented the tiny off-West End Irving Theatre, and there directed his own production of Clifford Odets' play Winter Journey (The Country Girl). This show was a critical success, but was a financial failure, and Harris lost all his savings in this venture.
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| Richard Harris in his role of King Arthur |
Harris' first starring role was in the film This Sporting Life (1963), as a bitter young coal miner, Frank Machin, who becomes an acclaimed rugby league football player. For his role, Harris won Best Actor in 1963 at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination.
He played Cain in John Huston's film The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966). More successful at the box office was Hawaii (1966), which Harris starred alongside Julie Andrews and Max Von Sydow. As a change of pace, he was the romantic lead in a Doris Day spy spoof comedy, Caprice (1967), directed by Frank Tashlin.
More information: The Guardian
In The Molly Maguires (1970), he played James McParland, the detective who infiltrates the title organisation, headed by Sean Connery. It was a box office flop. However A Man Called Horse (1970), with Harris in the title role, an 1825 English aristocrat who is captured by Indians, was a major success.
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| Richard Harris in his role of Albus Dumbledore |
He played the title role in the film Cromwell in 1970 opposite Alec Guinness as King Charles I of England. That year British exhibitors voted him the 9th most popular star at the UK box office. He had a cameo as Richard the Lionheart in Robin and Marian (1976), for Lester, then was in The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976).
Harris appeared in two films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. First, as the gunfighter English Bob in the Western Unforgiven (1992); second, as the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000).
After Gladiator, Harris played the supporting role of Albus Dumbledore in the first two of the Harry Potter films.
Harris was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in August 2002, reportedly after being hospitalised with pneumonia. He died at University College Hospital in Fitzrovia, London on 25 October 2002, aged 72.
I often sit back and think, I wish I'd done that,
and find out later that I already have.
Richard Harris
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