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| Birth Name(s) : Richard Harris |
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Full Richard Harris Biography
Richard St. John Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Academy Award-nominated and Grammy Award-winning Irish actor, singer and songwriter. He appeared on stage and in many films, and is perhaps best known for his roles as King Arthur in Camelot (1967), as Oliver Cromwell in Cromwell (1970) and for his portrayal of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), his last film. He also played a British aristocrat and prisoner in A Man Called Horse (1970).
Harris, the fifth of eight children, was born in Limerick City, Ireland, the son of Mildred (née Harty) and Ivan Harris, who owned a flour mill. He 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 the well-respected Garryowen club. He might have become a provincial or international-standard rugby player, but his athletic career was cut short when he contracted tuberculosis in his teens. He remained an ardent fan of Munster provincial rugby team until his death, attending many matches, and there are numerous stories of japes at rugby matches with fellow actors and rugby fans Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton.
As a result, he ended up temporarily homeless, sleeping in a coal cellar for six weeks. After completing his studies at the Academy, Harris joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. He began getting roles in West End theatre productions, starting with The Quare Fellow in 1956, a transfer from the Theatre Workshop.
Harris made his film debut in 1958 in the film Alive and Kicking. He had a memorable bit part in The Guns of Navarone as an Australian air force pilot who reports that blowing up the "bloody guns" of the title is impossible by air. For his role in Mutiny on the Bounty, despite being virtually unknown, he insisted on third billing, behind Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando.
His first star turn was in the 1963 film This Sporting Life, as a bitter young coal miner, Frank Machin, who becomes an acclaimed rugby league footballer. For his role as Frank Machin, Harris won the 1963 award for best actor at the Cannes Film Festival. He also won acclaim and notice for his leading role (with Charlton Heston) in Sam Peckinpah's famous "lost masterpiece" Major Dundee (1965), as an Irish immigrant turned Confederate cavalryman during the American Civil War.
Harris initially declined the offer to play Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, not wanting to commit to subsequent sequels. Upon learning that he had turned down the role, his granddaughter convinced him that he was "going to do it." He played the role of Headmaster Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter film adaptations, but died before filming commenced on the third movie.
In a 2001 interview with the Toronto Star, Harris expressed his fear that his association with the Harry Potter films would outshine the rest of his career, stating: "Because, you see, I don't just want to be remembered for being in those bloody films, and I'm afraid that's what going to happen to me."
In the 2002 re-make of The Count of Monte Cristo, Harris performed as the book's fictionalized character of Abbé Faria, the jailed priest and former Napoleonic soldier who instructs Dantès in language, science, and combat, and provides him a treasure map.
In 2003, his voice could be heard as the character Opaz in the animated film Kaena: The Prophecy. The movie was dedicated to him as he had died the previous year.
Harris' second marriage was to American actress Ann Turkel, who was 16 years his junior; that marriage also ended in divorce. He was a member of the Knights of Malta, despite his divorces, and was also knighted by Denmark in 1985. He was reportedly good friends with Peter O'Toole. His family reportedly hoped O'Toole would replace Harris as Dumbledore in Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban.
Harris often told stories about his haunted English Mansion, The Tower House, which was sold later to Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame. According to Harris, the tower was haunted by an eight-year-old boy who had been buried in the tower. The boy often kept Harris awake at night until he one day built a nursery for the boy to play in, which calmed the disturbances to some extent.
Harris died of Hodgkin's disease on October 25, 2002 at the age of 72, two and a half weeks before the U.S. premiere of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He was replaced as Dumbledore by fellow Irish-born actor Michael Gambon.
Whenever he was in London, Harris lived at the Savoy Hotel. According to hotel archivist Susan Scott, when he was being taken from the hotel on a stretcher, shortly before his death, he warned diners, 'It was the food!'
On September 30, 2006, Manuel Di Lucia, of Kilkee, County Clare and long time friend, organized a bronze lifesize statue of Richard Harris at age eighteen playing the game of raquets to be unveiled in Kilkee. The sculptor was Seamus Connolly.
Another life size statue of Richard Harris, as King Arthur from his film Camelot, has been erected in Bedford Row, in the centre of his home city of Limerick. |
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