Richard Harris

Mickey Rourke dedicated his 2009 BAFTA award for Best Actor to Harris, calling him "a good friend and great actor.".

Following his death, many of his family members wanted friend Peter O'Toole to take the role of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).

His final screen role was as "Lucius Sulla" in Julius Caesar (2002).

Only agreed to take the part of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) after his then 11-year-old granddaughter threatened never to speak to him again if he didn't.

Further fortune came his way with a strong performance in the blockbuster Gladiator (2000) and he became known to an entirely new generation of film fans as Albus Dumbledore in the mega-successful Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).

Harris was firmly back in vogue and rewarded his fans with more wonderful performances in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993); Cry, the Beloved Country (1995); The Great Kandinsky (1995) and This Is the Sea (1997).

He then locked horns with Harrison Ford as an IRA sympathizer in Patriot Games (1992) and got one of his best roles as gunfighter English Bob in the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven (1992).

However, the luck of the Irish was once again to shine on Harris's career and he scored rave reviews (and another Oscar nomination) for The Field (1990).

Received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Scranton in 1987.

An alcoholic, he gave up drinking completely in 1981 and returned to drinking Guinness a decade later.

The 1980s kicked off with Harris appearing in the silly Bo Derek vanity production Tarzan the Ape Man (1981) and the remainder of the decade had him appearing in some very forgettable productions.

In 1979 he was diagnosed with hyperglycemia, a condition in which an excessive amount of glucose circulates in the blood plasma.

Both he and fellow Irish actor (and close friend) Peter O'Toole appeared in versions of "Gulliver's Travels": Harris played the title character in Gulliver's Travels (1977) and O'Toole played the Emperor of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels (1996), in which Ted Danson played Gulliver.

Better performances followed, among them a role as a reluctant police informer in The Molly Maguires (1970) alongside Sir Sean Connery.

Harris took the lead role in the violent western A Man Called Horse (1970), which became something of a cult film and spawned two sequels.

As the 1970s progressed, Harris continued to appear regularly on screen; however, the quality of the scripts varied from above average to woeful.

His credits during this period included directing himself as an aging soccer player in The Hero (1970); the western The Deadly Trackers (1973); the big-budget "disaster" film Juggernaut (1974); the strangely-titled crime film 99 and 44/100% Dead! (1974); with Connery again in Robin and Marian (1976); Gulliver's Travels (1977); a part in the Jaws (1975); Orca: The Killer Whale (1977) and a nice turn as an ill-fated mercenary with Richard Burton and Roger Moore in the popular action film The Wild Geese (1978).

Once said in an interview that he had a great fascination with authority figures and their use of power. During his career he portrayed King Arthur in Camelot (1967); Oliver Cromwell in Cromwell (1970); King Richard the Lionheart in Robin and Marian (1976); Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator (2000) and Headmaster Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).

He next showed up in Hawaii (1966) and played King Arthur in Camelot (1967), a lackluster adaptation of the famous Broadway play.

He then appeared in the WW II commando tale The Heroes of Telemark (1965) and in the Sam Peckinpah-directed western Major Dundee (1965).

Turned down the role of Commodus in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), then went on to play Commodus' father Marcus Aurelius (who dies at his son's hands) in Gladiator (2000).

However, his breakthrough performance was as the quintessential "angry young man" in the sensational drama This Sporting Life (1963), which scored him an Oscar nomination.

In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), he told a story about when he was a young actor playing Seyton in a theatrical production of "Macbeth." The lead actor was a real jerk to him, making constant demeaning references to Harris' Irish heritage. On opening night Harris couldn't take it anymore. In Act V, Macbeth turns to him and says, "Wherefore was that cry?" Harris was supposed to reply, "The queen, my lord, is dead," after which Macbeth goes into his famous soliloquy about "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow." Instead, Harris decided instead to say, "Oh, don't worry. She's fine. She'll be up and about in ten minutes." He ruined the performance and was promptly fired.

He appeared in four films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: The Guns Of Navarone (1961), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Unforgiven (1992) and Gladiator (2000). The latter two won in the category.

Harris, Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton were drinking partners from the 1960s until O'Toole had to stop drinking in 1978.

He debuted on screen in Shake Hands with the Devil (1959) and quickly scored regular work in films, including The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), The Night Fighters (1960) and a good role as a frustrated Australian bomber pilot in The Guns Of Navarone (1961).

In his youth he was a fan of Marlon Brando and could imitate or parody his performance in On the Waterfront (1954) at the drop of a hat. However, he did not get along with Brando while filming Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and blamed the American star's on-set behavior for the film going over budget and over schedule. During the 1960s he often criticized Brando's eccentric movie choices in interviews.

During the 1940s and early 1950s he went to see all the films of John Wayne and Gary Cooper. Later, however, he described both actors as "pantomime cowboys". The westerns he made, like A Man Called Horse (1970), were decidedly revisionist in tone.

Richard St John Harris was born on October 1, 1930 in Limerick, Ireland, to a farming family, one of nine children born to Mildred Josephine (nee Harty) and Ivan John Harris. He attended Crescent College, a Jesuit school, and was an excellent rugby player, with a strong passion for literature. Unfortunately, a bout of tuberculosis as a teenager ended his aspirations to a rugby career, but he became fascinated with the theater and skipped a local dance one night to attend a performance of "Henry IV". He was hooked and went on to learn his craft at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), then spent several years in stage productions.