ROBERT HARDY: MINISTER OF MAGIC CORNELIUS FUDGE

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy (29 October 1925-3 August 2017) was an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television.

Hardy was born in Cheltenham in 1925 to Jocelyn, née Dugdale, and Henry Harrison Hardy, the headmaster of Cheltenham College. He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Oxford University, where his studies were interrupted by service in the Royal Air Force, after which he returned to gain a BA in English. 

On BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs he described the degree he obtained as shabby, although he treasured the time spent studying under C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

More information: Daily Mail

He was a close friend of actor Richard Burton, whom he met at Oxford University. While playing Henry V, Hardy developed an interest in medieval warfare, and he later wrote and presented an acclaimed television documentary on the subject of the Battle of Agincourt. 

Robert Hardy

He also wrote two books on the subject of the longbow, Longbow: A Social and Military History and The Great Warbow; From Hastings to the Mary Rose with Matthew Strickland. He was one of the experts consulted by the archaeologist responsible for raising the Mary Rose. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers of the City of London from 1988 to 1990. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Hardy began his career as a classical actor. In 1959 he appeared as Sicinius opposite Laurence Olivier in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon, directed by Peter Hall. He then appeared in Shakespeare's Henry V on stage and in television's An Age of Kings (1960), and subsequently played Coriolanus in The Spread of the Eagle (BBC, 1963) and Sir Toby Belch for the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Twelfth Night in 1980. 

His voice performance as Robin Hood in Tale Spinners For Children, an LP from the 1960s, is considered one of the best Robin Hood renditions. His voice was also the voice of D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, and of Frédéric Chopin, in The Story of Chopin.

More information: BBC

Over the years, Hardy played a range of parts on television and film. His first continuing role in a TV series was as businessman Alec Stewart in the award-winning oil company drama The Troubleshooters for the BBC, which he played from 1966 to 1970. He won further acclaim for his portrayal of the mentally-unhinged Abwehr Sgt. Gratz in LWT's 1969 war drama Manhunt. In 1975, Hardy portrayed Prince Albert in the award-winning 13-hour serial Edward the Seventh.

Cornelius Fudge & Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter

Hardy played both Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, each on more than one occasion. He played Churchill most notably in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981), for which he won a BAFTA award, but also in The Sittaford Mystery, Bomber Harris and War and Remembrance. He played Roosevelt in the BBC serial, Bertie and Elizabeth, and in the French TV mini-series, Le Grand Charles, about the life of Charles de Gaulle. On 20 August 2010, he read Churchill's famous wartime address Never was so much owed by so many to so few at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the speech.
 

He also played Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in Elizabeth R, and Prince Albert in Edward the Seventh. He took the role of Sir John Middleton in the 1995 film version of Sense and Sensibility. His big screen roles included Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter films.

Today, Robert Hardy has died, aged 91 at Denville Hall, a home for retired actors.

More information: Denville Home

Difficult  for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. 
Except for  Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, 

who speak that way anyway.

Emma Thompson