Sir Michael Gambon has died at the age of 82 leaving a legacy of memorable characters and stand-out performances across stage and screen.
The veteran actor had a career which spanned almost 60 years during which time he won four TV baftas, three Olivier awards and two Screen Actors Guild awards.
And his work has become part of our cultural heritage from his lead role in the BBC series written by Dennis Potter The Singing Detective to Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films.
We take a look at some of the late actor’s most iconic roles.
His early career
Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1940, he moved with his parents to London at the age of six. After taking an engineering apprenticeship with toolmakers Vickers-Armstrong at the age of 15, he eventually left at the age of 22 to pursue his interest in acting.
He made his professional stage debut in Othello at Dublin’s Gates Theatre in 1962 and a year later caught the eye of Laurence Olivier, who was recruiting actors for his National Theatre Company. Four years later, he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company and had his first chance to take lead roles.
He was once asked to audition for the role of James Bond but claimed: “I haven’t got nice hair and I’m a bit fat.”
In 1974, he was cast in Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy of The Norman Conquests and won acclaim for his role as Jerry in Harold Pinter’s play Betrayal in 1978.
He rose to prominence with his leading performance in the “Life of Galileo” directed by John Dexter and staged at the National Theatre in 1980.
Turning to television
He reached a whole new audience and became a household name when he took on the role of Philip Marlow in Dennis Potter’s classic BBC television drama The Singing Detective.
Gambon played a mystery writer, hospitalised by a chronic skin and joint disease, who escapes the pain to a fantasy world where he is the singing sleuth.
His performance was to win his first TV Bafta.
In the early 90s, he stared in the ITV series Maigret playing the fictional French detective Jules Maigret adapted from the books by Georges Simenon.
He won a second TV Bafta for his portrayal of Squire Hamley in the BBC adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell work Wives and Daughters.
And he would go on to win a further two in the early 2000s for performances in BBC drama Perfect Strangers and the Channel 4 show Longitude.
A life in films
Although he made his film debut in 1965 in Laurence Olivier’s Othello alongside Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Derek Jacobi, it is the movies he made much later in his career for which he will be best remembered.
He starred with Dame Helen Mirren in the 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover playing English gangster Albert Spica.
A decade later he appeared in Tim Burton’s gothic supernatural horror film Sleepy Hollow.
And then in 2001, he joined a host of stars including Dame Helen Mirren, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Eileen Atkins, Sir Derek Jacobi, Charles Dance and Clive Owen in Robert Altman’s Oscar-winning film Gosford Park.
His performance as wealthy industrialist Sir William McCordle won him a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Following the death of fellow actor Richard Harris in 2002, Gambon took on the role of Professor Albus Dumbledore in the movie adaptations of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
He was to play the character in six of the eight films from 2004 to 2011 bringing him a whole new generation of fans.
But he was unfazed by the fame, once telling an interviewer that when playing Dumbledore, he did not “have to play anyone really. I just stick on a beard and play me, so it’s no great feat.”