British actor Alan Rickman, a classically trained stage star and sensual screen villain in the Harry Potter saga and other films, has died. He was 69.
Rickman’s family said that the actor died early on Thursday in London after a battle with cancer.
Daniel Radcliffe, who played opposite Rickman in eight Harry Potter films, said Rickman was “undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with.”
Photo: AP
Born to a working-class London family in 1946 and trained at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Rickman was often cast as the bad guy; with his rich, languid voice he could invest evil with wicked, irresistible relish.
His breakout role was as scheming French aristocrat the Vicomte de Valmont in an acclaimed 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
Film roles included Hans Gruber, the psychopathic villain who tormented Bruce Willis in Die Hard in 1988; a deceased lover who consoles his bereaved partner in 1990’s Truly Madly Deeply; the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991; and a wayward husband in 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually.
Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling tweeted that “there are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman’s death. He was a magnificent actor [and] a wonderful man.”
Emma Thompson, who starred alongside Rickman in films including Sense and Sensibility and Love Actually, praised Rickman’s “humor, intelligence, wisdom and kindness” and called him “the finest of actors and directors.”
Mohammed Saghir, the present-day Sheriff of Nottingham — now a ceremonial role in the English Midlands city — paid tribute to Rickman’s version of Robin Hood’s famous foe.
“His sheriff was a gloriously nasty character who it was easy to love to hate and who he appeared to have great fun playing,” Saghir said.
Rickman is survived by his partner of 50 years, Rima Horton, whom he married in 2012.
Funeral details were not immediately available.
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