Why Was Richard Harris so Famous?

Richard Harris was famous all over the world for playing the role of Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films.

The Irish actor and singer who appeared on stage and in many films, notably as Corrado Zeller in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert Richard Harris.

Harris made his film debut in 1959 in the film Alive and Kicking and played the lead role in The Ginger Man in the West End in 1959.

In his second film, he had a small role as an IRA Volunteer in Shake Hands with the Devil (1959), supporting James Cagney. The film was shot in Ireland and directed by Michael Anderson who offered Harris a role in his next movie, The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), shot in Hollywood.

Harris appeared in two films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. First, as the gunfighter “English Bob” in the Western Unforgiven (1992); second, as the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000).

He also played a lead role alongside James Earl Jones in the Darrell Roodt film adaptation of Cry, the Beloved Country (1995). In 1999, Harris starred in the film To Walk with Lions.

After Gladiator, Harris played the supporting role of Albus Dumbledore in the first two of the Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the latter of which was his final film role.

Richard Harris died at University College Hospital in Bloomsbury, London, on 25 October 2002, from pneumonia. He was 72.