o some, Sir Michael Gambon was known for his timbrous voice, playful sense of humour, physical size and peerless acting abilities. To others, he was the world’s best-loved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. For both, his passing today, aged 82, comes as a major blow.
The legendary screen and stage actor, who picked up 12 Olivier award nominations and four BAFTA wins over his seven-decade career, nearly lived a very different life. Born in a suburb of Dublin to a seamstress and an engineering operative, the family moved to Camden when Gambon was six. School wasn’t for him: he left aged 15 in 1955. Following in the footsteps of his father, he took an apprenticeship as a toolmaker at an engineering company, and qualified as a technician. He was fascinated by machines for the rest of his life, collecting antique guns, cars, and watches.
But then, in a twist that we’re all incredibly grateful for, Gambon decided he wanted to become an actor, and had the audacity to go for it: he wrote to the founder of the Gate Theatre in Dublin, made up a CV and proposed he should join the company. The ruse worked and he was taken on in 1962. From there, the rest is (storied) history: the actor started working for Laurence Olivier’s newly established National Theatre just one year later. Over the next three years alone he acted in 12 plays including Hamlet, Saint Joan, Othello, The Crucible, and Love for Love.
Gambon was a laugh: he was notorious for enjoying playing a prank, the most famous of these, perhaps, being taking his friend, the actor Terence Rigby, up in a two-seater plane to “cure” his fear of flying (Gambon had a pilot’s licence) and pretending to have a heart-attack at the controls. He reportedly enjoyed shouting “F**king old people with nothing better to do with their time,” at bored-looking matinee audience members, and would make up wild stories to tease journalists. Arguably it made interviewing much more fun for everyone.
But he could do serious too. In fact, many think he was best at it: he acted in several of Samuel Beckett’s plays, including Eh Joe, first in 2006 and again in 2013, and in Krapp’s Last Tape in 2010. He played Eddie Carbone in A View from the Bridge in 1987, the title role in Uncle Vanya in 1988, Falstaff in Henry IV in 2005, Othello in 1991, King Lear in the RSC’s production in 1982, and so on.
Over the course of his life he acted in an astonishing 74 plays and became known as one of British greatest living actors; he was knighted in 1998 having truly grown into Ralph Richardson’s potentially withering moniker, ‘The Great Gambon’.
Although today he is best recognised around the world for playing Dumbledore in Harry Potter, Gambon seemed rather bemused by the worldwide fame it brought him: “It’s very odd,” Gambon said once. “I hadn’t realised before just how powerful these things are. I just do the job and go home and you forget it.”
Here, we look at just some of Gambon’s best on screen roles to celebrate his brilliant career.
Harry Potter (2004-2011)
Of course, the Harry Potter franchise had to come first on the list. How could it not when Dumbledore became Gambon’s best-known on screen role? Picking up from fellow thespian Richard Harris after the first Dumbledore’s early death (Harris died aged 72 in 2002) Gambon presented a much steelier, darker version of the magical headmaster, which perfectly matched the increasingly serious mood of the films.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
As is often the case, Gambon had long been a star of the stage before enjoying major on screen success. But he was heralded for his role in Peter Greenaway’s arthouse 1989 crime-drama, where he played violent gangster Albert Spica. Crime boss Spica decides to buy a posh French restaurant in London; he repulses everyone with his bad manners, including his wife Georgina (Helen Mirren). Things go from bad to worse when Spica finds out about Georgina’s affair and plots his revenge. Tim Roth, Richard Bohringer and Alan Howard also starred.
The Singing Detective (1986)
This BBC serial drama written by legendary dramatist Dennis Potter told the story of a hospitalised Pulp thriller writer, Philip Marlow (who was played by Gambon) who is tormented by his memories. Bill Paterson, Imelda Staunton, Joanne Whalley, Patrick Malahide also starred. “I learned what acting could be from Michael in The Singing Detective – complex, vulnerable and utterly human,” said Jason Isaacs on social media today (September 28), commemorating the actor.
Maigret (1992–1993)
In this Nineties ITV adaptation of the French detective novels by Georges Simenon, Gambon starred as Jules Maigret, the gruff but fair police detective. He was perfect for the role: physically large with an unreadable face, but a softness in the eyes. The series, which was set in post-WWII France (though filmed in Budapest), ran for two-series and is still widely regarded today (by the British) as the best reimagining of Maigret on screen.
The King’s Speech (2010)
In Tom Hooper’s celebrated film, Gambon starred as King George V, acting alongside a starry cast that included Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Derek Jacobi and Jennifer Ehle. Gambon did a brilliant job of playing Queen Victoria’s grandson, who was tactfully described by one biographer as “frank, simple, honest and good — too good perhaps to be interesting” – by making him (and how could he not with that voice and that manner) a slightly more fascinating figure.
Gosford Park (2001)
In Robert Altman’s satirical black comedy, Gambon played wealthy industrialist Sir William McCordle, who has invited his friends to his country estate for a weekend of shooting. Then, of coure, there’s a murder, and the games really begin. In an all-star cast, which included Derek Jacobi, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Tom Hollander, Gambon still stood out. He made a truly believable McCordle: impatient, rude, detached and a worthy receiver of anyone’s ill-will.
Michael Gambon died on 28 September, 2023 aged 82