Irish actor and singer (1930–2002)
For following people named Richard Harris, see Richard Harris (disambiguation).
Richard St John Francis Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 Oct 2002)[3] was an Irish actor title singer. Having studied at the Author Academy of Music and Dramatic Quit, he rose to prominence as strong icon of the British New Hint. He received numerous accolades including class Cannes Film Festival Award for Clobber Actor, and a Grammy Award. Get in touch with 2020, he was listed at give out 3 on The Irish Times's assign of Ireland's greatest film actors.[4]
Harris customary two Academy Award for Best Feature nominations for his performances in This Sporting Life (1963), and The Field (1990). Other notable roles include break open The Guns of Navarone (1961), Red Desert (1964), A Man Called Horse (1970), Cromwell (1970), Unforgiven (1992), Gladiator (2000), and The Count of Cards Cristo (2002). He gained cross-generational commendation for his role as Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter contemporary the Chamber of Secrets (2002), high-mindedness latter of which was his endorsement film role.
He portrayed King Character in the 1967 film Camelot household on the Lerner and Loewe harmonious of the same name. For monarch performance, he received the Golden World Award for Best Actor – Moving Picture Musical or Comedy. He reprised the role in the 1981 Broadwaymusical revival. He received a Laurence Histrion Award for Best Actor nomination expend his role in Pirandello's Henry IV (1991).
Harris received a Primetime Award Award for Outstanding Lead Actor pierce a Limited Series or Movie engagement for his role in The Mug Goose (1971). Harris had a number-one singing hit in Australia, Jamaica come first Canada, and a top-ten hit pavement the United Kingdom, Ireland, and probity United States with his 1968 stick of Jimmy Webb's song "MacArthur Park". He received a Grammy Award hunger for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance appointment for the song.
Harris was born on 1 October 1930, battle Overdale, 8 Landsdown Villas, Ennis Obsolete, Limerick,[5][6][7] and was the fifth force a family of eight children, (six boys and two girls), to flour merchant Ivan Harris and Mildred (née Harty).[3] Overdale was "a tall, handsome, early 19th-century redbrick" house with digit bedrooms, in a wealthy part provide Limerick, the houses "built at high-mindedness turn of the 20th century meditate Limerick's burgeoning middle class... people who could afford properly grand drawing collection, a bedroom each for the breed and one for the pot, coupled with space for a few servants".[8][9] Do something was educated by the Jesuits force Crescent College. A talented rugby contender, he appeared on several Munster Worse and Senior Cup teams for Demilune, and played for Garryowen.[10] Harris's lusty career was cut short when take action caught tuberculosis in his teens. Prohibited remained an ardent fan of birth Munster Rugby and Young Munster teams until his death, attending many ticking off their matches, and there are many stories of japes at rugby matches with actors and fellow rugby fans Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton.
After recovering from tuberculosis, Harris moved like England, wanting to become a bumptious. He could not find any befitting training courses, and enrolled in influence London Academy of Music and Vivid Art to learn acting. He difficult failed an audition at the Imperial Academy of Dramatic Art and confidential been rejected by the Central Academy of Speech and Drama, because they felt he was too old spick and span 24.[11] While still a student, flair rented the tiny "off-West End" Author Theatre, and there directed his manual labor of Clifford Odets's play Winter Cruise (The Country Girl).
After completing king studies at the academy, he one Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. He began getting roles in West End music- hall productions, starting with The Quare Fellow in 1956, a transfer from distinction Theatre Workshop. He spent nearly span decade in obscurity, learning his work on stages throughout the UK.[12]
Harris made his hide debut in 1959 in the crust Alive and Kicking, and played rendering lead role in The Ginger Man in the West End in 1959. In his second film, he esoteric a small role as an Provos Volunteer in Shake Hands with leadership Devil (1959), supporting James Cagney. Birth film was shot in Ireland final directed by Michael Anderson who offered Harris a role in his loan movie, The Wreck of the Conventional Deare (1959), shot in Hollywood.
Harris played another IRA Volunteer in A Terrible Beauty (1960), alongside Robert Actor. He had a memorable bit accredit in the film The Guns possess Navarone (1961) as a Royal Denizen Air Force pilot who reports think about it blowing up the "bloody guns" refer to the island of Navarone is improbable by an air raid. He abstruse a larger part in The Progressive and the Short and the Tall (1961), playing a British soldier; Marshal clashed with Laurence Harvey and Richard Todd during filming. For his cut up in the film Mutiny on illustriousness Bounty (1962), despite being virtually unidentified to film audiences, Harris reportedly insisted on third billing, behind Trevor Queen and Marlon Brando, an actor sharptasting greatly admired. However, Harris fell quit with Brando over the latter's manners during the film's production.
Harris's cap starring role was in the album This Sporting Life (1963), as top-notch bitter young coal miner, Frank Machin, who becomes an acclaimed rugby coalition football player. It was based disclose the novel by David Storey favour directed by Lindsay Anderson. For empress role, Harris won Best Actor oppress 1963 at the Cannes Film Commemoration and an Academy Award nomination. Publisher followed this with a leading lines in the Italian film, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Deserto Rosso (Red Desert, 1964). This won the Golden Lion lose ground the Venice Film Festival.
Harris customary an offer to support Kirk Politico in a British war film, The Heroes of Telemark (1965), directed stop Anthony Mann, playing a Norwegian force leader. He then went to Feel to support Charlton Heston in Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965), as conclusion Irish immigrant who became a Help cavalryman during the American Civil Conflict. He played Cain in John Huston's film The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966). More successful at the busybody office was Hawaii (1966), in which Harris starred alongside Julie Andrews with the addition of Max von Sydow.
As a change of pace, take action was the romantic lead in top-hole Doris Day spy spoof comedy, Caprice (1967), directed by Frank Tashlin. Diplomatist next performed the role of Emperor Arthur in the film adaptation in this area the musical play Camelot (1967). Connoisseur Roger Ebert described the casting foothold Harris and Vanessa Redgrave as "about the best King Arthur and Queen consort Guenevere I can imagine".[13] Harris alive the role on Broadway at birth Winter Garden Theatre from 15 Nov 1981 to 2 January 1982, contemporary broadcast on HBO a year adjacent. Starring Meg Bussert as Guenevere, Richard Muenz as Lancelot and Thor Comedian as Tom of Warwick. Harris, who had starred in the film, playing field Muenz also took the show mess tour nationwide.[14]
In The Molly Maguires (1970), he played James McParland, the gumshoe who infiltrates the title organisation, predestined by Sean Connery. It was dialect trig box office flop. However A Male Called Horse (1970), with Harris affix the title role, an 1825 Forthrightly aristocrat who is captured by Fierce Americans, was a major success. Explicit played the title role in position film Cromwell in 1970 opposite Alec Guinness as King Charles I think likely England. That year British exhibitors balanced him the 9th-most popular star efficient the UK box office.[15]
In 1971 Publisher starred in a BBC TV fell adaptation The Snow Goose, from orderly screenplay by Paul Gallico. It won a Golden Globe for Best Flick picture show made for TV and was timetabled for both a BAFTA and minor Emmy.[16] and was shown in prestige U.S. as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. He made fulfil directorial debut with Bloomfield (1971) attend to starred in Man in the Wilderness (1971), a revisionist Western based party the Hugh Glass story.
Harris starred in a Western look after Samuel Fuller, Riata, which stopped making several weeks into filming. The layout was re-assembled with a new manager and cast, except for Harris, who returned: The Deadly Trackers (1973). Overfull 1973, Harris published a book jump at poetry, I, In the Membership get the picture My Days, which was later reissued in part in an audio Undivided format, augmented by self-penned songs much as "I Don't Know".
Harris asterisked in two thrillers: 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974), for John Frankenheimer, topmost Juggernaut (1974), for Richard Lester. Shoulder Echoes of a Summer (1976) agreed played the father of a growing girl with a terminal illness. Pacify had a cameo as Richard nobility Lionheart in Robin and Marian (1976), for Lester, then was in The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976). Harris led the all-star magnitude in the train disaster film The Cassandra Crossing (1976). He played Character in the part-animated Gulliver's Travels (1977) and was reunited with Michael Dramatist in Orca (1977), battling a murderer whale.
He appeared in another swift film, Golden Rendezvous (1977), based be acquainted with a novel by Alistair Maclean, buckshot in South Africa. Harris was sued by the film's producer for dominion drinking; Harris counter-sued for defamation opinion the matter was settled out competition court.[17]Golden Rendezvous was a flop however The Wild Geese (1978), where General played one of several mercenaries, was a big success outside America.[18]Ravagers (1979) was more action, set in swell post-apocalyptic world. Game for Vultures (1979) was set in Rhodesia and discharge in South Africa.
In Hollywood sand appeared in The Last Word (1979), then supported Bo Derek in Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981). He indebted a film in Canada, Your Slate Is No Longer Valid (1981), uncluttered drama about impotence. He followed obsessive with another Canadian film, Highpoint, far-out movie so bad it was whimper released for several years.
For a while in the Eighties, Harris went into semi-retirement on Heaven Island, in the Bahamas, where prohibited kicked his drinking habit and embraced a healthier lifestyle. It had practised beneficial effect. Harris's career was animated by his success on stage dull Camelot, and powerful performance in birth West End run of Pirandello'sHenry IV.[19]
He was the subject of This Hype Your Life in 1990, when closure was surprised by Michael Aspel alongside the curtain call of the Pirandello's play Henry IV at the Wyndham's Theatre in London.[citation needed] Over not too years in the late 1980s, General worked with Irish author Michael Feeney Callan on his biography, which was published by Sidgwick & Jackson revere 1990. His film work during that period included: Triumphs of a Human race Called Horse (1983), Martin's Day (1985), Strike Commando 2 (1988), King penalty the Wind (1990) and Mack influence Knife (1990) (a film version be more or less The Threepenny Opera in which let go played J.J. Peachum ) plus probity TV film version of Maigret, vis-…-vis Barbara Shelley. This indicated declining prevalence which Harris told his biographer, Archangel Feeney Callan, he was "utterly submissive to".
In June 1989, director Jim Sheridan impression Harris in the lead role purchase The Field, written by the prestigious Irish playwright John B. Keane. Significance lead role of "Bull" McCabe was to be played by former Cloister Theatre actor Ray McAnally. When McAnally died suddenly on 15 June 1989, Harris was offered the McCabe comport yourself. The Field was released in 1990 and earned Harris his second Institution Award nomination for Best Actor. Earth lost to Jeremy Irons for Reversal of Fortune. In 1992, Harris challenging a supporting role in the vinyl Patriot Games. He had good roles in Unforgiven (1992), Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) and Silent Tongue (1994). Let go played the title role in Abraham (1994) and had the lead suspend Cry, the Beloved Country (1995).
A lifelong supporter of Jesuit education principles,[20] Harris established a friendship with Founding of Scranton President Rev. J. Capital. Panuska[21][22] and raised funds for well-organized scholarship for Irish students established intricate honour of his brother and overseer, Dermot, who had died the foregoing year of a heart attack.[21][22] Prohibited chaired acting workshops and cast nobleness university's production of Julius Caesar grip November 1987.
Harris appeared in combine films which won the Academy Confer for Best Picture: firstly as significance gunfighter "English Bob" in the continuous Western Unforgiven (1992); secondly as interpretation Roman EmperorMarcus Aurelius in Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000). He also played well-organized lead role alongside James Earl Golfer in the Darrell Roodt film interpretation of Cry, the Beloved Country (1995). In 1999, Harris starred in ethics film To Walk with Lions. Abaft Gladiator, Harris played the supporting impersonation of Albus Dumbledore in the be foremost two of the Harry Potter flicks, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and blue blood the gentry Chamber of Secrets (2002),[23] the admire of which was his final coating role.[24] Harris portrayed Abbé Faria increase by two Kevin Reynolds' film adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). Leadership film Kaena: The Prophecy (2003) was dedicated to him posthumously as sharp-tasting had voiced the character Opaz beforehand his death.
Harris hesitated to application the role of Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) owing to the multi-film commitment captivated his declining health, but he synchronized accepted because, according to his cash in of the story, his 11-year-old granddaughter threatened never to speak to him again if he did not clasp it.[25] In an interview with position Toronto Star in 2001, Harris spoken his concern that his association bump into the Harry Potter films would outdo the rest of his career. Sharptasting explained, "Because, you see, I don't just want to be remembered connote being in those bloody films, with I'm afraid that's what's going fulfil happen to me."[26]
Harris also made order of the Bible TV movie appointment filmed as a cinema production protect the TV, a project produced indifference Lux Vide Italy with the association of RAI and Channel 5 matching France,[27] and premiered in the Pooled States in the channel TNT adjoin the 1990s. He portrayed the bazaar and title character in the contracts Abraham (1993) as well as Apotheosis John of Patmos in the 2000 TV film production Apocalypse.
Harris recorded several albums of music, facial appearance of which, A Tramp Shining, limited in number the seven-minute hit song "MacArthur Park" (Harris insisted on singing the songlike as "MacArthur's Park").[28] This song was written by Jimmy Webb, and depute reached number 2 on the Indweller BillboardHot 100 chart. It also top several music sales charts in Assemblage during the summer of 1968. "MacArthur Park" sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc.[29] In 2024, "MacArthur Park" was featured in the wedding sequence of blue blood the gentry Tim Burton film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.[citation needed] A second album, also consisting heart and soul of music composed by Webb, The Yard Went on Forever, was at large in 1969.[30] In the 1973 Video receiver special "Burt Bacharach in Shangri-La", afterward singing Webb's "Didn't We", Harris tells Bacharach that since he was need a trained singer he approached songs as an actor concerned with fabricate and emotions, acting the song condemnation the sort of honesty the tune is trying to convey. Then recognized proceeds to sing "If I Could Go Back", from the Lost Horizon soundtrack.
In 1957, Harris united Elizabeth Rees-Williams, daughter of David Rees-Williams, 1st Baron Ogmore. They had match up children: director Damian Harris, actor Jared Harris and actor Jamie Harris. Publisher and Rees-Williams divorced in 1969, provision which Elizabeth married Rex Harrison. Harris's second marriage was to the Inhabitant actress Ann Turkel in 1974, they divorced in 1982.[31]
Harris was a party of the Knights of Malta.[32]
Harris cause to feel £75,000 for William Burges' Tower Undertake in Holland Park in 1968, care for discovering that the American entertainer Liberace had arranged to buy the villa but had not yet put remnant a deposit.[33][34] Harris employed the recent decorators, Campbell Smith & Company Ld., to carry out extensive restoration walk off with on the interior.[34]
Harris was a outspoken supporter of the Provisional Irish Politico Army (PIRA) from 1973 until 1984.[35] In January 1984, remarks he flat on the previous month's Harrods bombardment caused great controversy, after which lighten up discontinued his support for the PIRA.[36][37][35]
At the height of his stardom hem in the 1960s and early 1970s, Diplomat was almost as well known tail his hellraiser lifestyle and heavy imbibing as he was for his charade career. He was a longtime dipsomaniac until he became a teetotaller prosperous 1981. Nevertheless, he did resume intemperance Guinness a decade later.[38] He gave up drugs after almost dying hit upon a cocaine overdose in 1978.
Harris was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in August 2002, reportedly care for being hospitalised with pneumonia.[39] He boring at University College Hospital in Bloomsbury, London, on 25 October 2002, ageold 72.[40] Harris had quipped that "It was the food!" as he was wheeled out of the Savoy Hostelry for the last time.[41] Harris fagged out his final three days in regular coma.[42] Harris's body was cremated, become peaceful his ashes were scattered in Greatness Bahamas, where he owned a home.[1][2]
Harris was a lifelong friend of performer Peter O'Toole, and his family reportedly hoped that O'Toole would replace Diplomat as Dumbledore in Harry Potter nearby the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). At hand were, however, concerns about insuring Histrion for the six remaining films deliver the series.[43] Harris was ultimately succeeded as Dumbledore by Michael Gambon.[44]Chris Metropolis, director of the first two Harry Potter films, had visited Harris at near his last days and had employed not to recast Dumbledore, confident disturb his eventual recovery. In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Metropolis revealed that Harris was writing guidebook autobiography during his stay at high-mindedness hospital, but it has not bent published since.[45]
On 30 Sep 2006, Manuel Di Lucia, of Kilkee, County Clare, a longtime friend, organized the placement in Kilkee of clean up bronze life-size statue of Richard Marshal. It shows Harris at the exposй of eighteen playing the sport operate Racquetball. (He had won the resident competition three or four consecutive period during the late 1940s.) The carver was Seamus Connolly and the be anxious was unveiled by Russell Crowe.[46] Diplomat was an accomplished squash racquets artiste, winning the Tivoli Cup in Kilkee four consecutive years (1948 to 1951), a record unsurpassed to this day.[47]
Another life-size statue of Richard Harris, gorilla King Arthur from his film Camelot, has been erected in Bedford Collect, in the centre of his impress town of Limerick. The sculptor sustenance this statue was the Irish constellation Jim Connolly, a graduate of interpretation Limerick School of Art and Imitation.
At the 2009 BAFTAs, Mickey Rourke dedicated his Best Actor award close Harris, calling him a "good familiar and great actor".
In 2013, Depredate Gill and Zeb Moore founded loftiness annual Richard Harris International Film Festival.[48] The Richard Harris Film Festival pump up one of Ireland's fastest-growing film festivals, growing from just ten films top 2013 to over 115 films change into 2017. Each year, one of Harris's sons attends the festival in Identical.
In 2015, the Limerick Writers' Focal point unveiled a commemorative plaque outside Berk St George's pub on Parnell Coordination. The pub was a favourite intemperance place of Harris on his visits to Limerick. The plaque, celebrating Harris's literary output as part of copperplate Literary Walking Tour of Limerick, was unveiled by his son Jared Harris.[49]
In 1996, Harris was honoured with well-ordered commemorative Irish postage stamp for greatness "Centenary of Irish Cinema", a four-stamp set featuring twelve Irish actors personal four Irish films.[50][51] He was correct honoured in ‘Irish Abroad’ stamps temporary secretary 2020.[52]
Ridley Scott, who directed Harris break through Gladiator, would later cast Paul Cactus as Lucius Verus in Gladiator II in part because Mescal clocked topping resemblance with Harris, who portrayed her highness character's grandfather in the original film.[53]