Richard Harris dies at 72 -- Rest in Peace

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Subject:

Richard Harris dies at 72

Author:
Harry Potter

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Date Posted: October 26, 2002 7:41:08 EDT

Richard Harris, the voluble Irishman who starred as King Arthur in the film version of "Camelot" and more recently played Albus Dumbledore, the wise, magical and benign headmaster in the first Harry Potter movie and its forthcoming sequel, died yesterday in London. He was 72.

He learned he had lymphatic cancer earlier this year, and when his doctors told him, he said it was quite remarkable that he had lived long enough to develop the disease and still be working, given the nature of the life he had led.

Mr. Harris always said he loved to act but hated to do it in films because of his disdain for movie stars. Although the critics generally had high praise for his acting, both onstage and onscreen, some seemed to suggest that Richard Harris the man � noted for his interest in pub crawling, strong spirits and strong, spirited women � was far more intriguing than most of the scripts he got.

Still, Mr. Harris won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award, both for his work in "This Sporting Life" (1963). Archer Winsten, writing in The New York Post, called it "a great, indelibly memorable performance" and Judith Crist described Mr. Harris as "an unforgettable figure" in The New York Herald Tribune.

His fellow actors couldn't forget him, either. He was portraying Dumbledore recently when, according to a British newspaper, he exploded in anger and expletives.

"What are you all worrying about?" he roared at the cast. "There's a war in the Middle East, there are floods all over England, and there are bombs being thrown all over the world. There is real life out there. This is all make-believe."

Earlier this year he told a reporter from The London Mirror, "I have no friends in this business."

"I don't go to their clubs, don't go to their hangouts and don't mix at all," he added. "I am part of the business but I am apart from it. If anyone ever asks my advice, I tell them, `Don't take yourself too seriously.' " He added that he was pleased to have lived to be over 70. "I can be eccentric now and get away with it," he observed.

Richard St. John Harris was born in Limerick, Ireland. His parents were Ivan Harris, who owned a flour mill, and the former Mildred Harty. "I swim in a pool of my own neurosis," he told a Hollywood reporter in 1955. "I carry love, grief, wrath deeply, like an Irishman."

Mr. Harris was always interested in sports, especially rugby, but he had to curtail his activities in late adolescence when he contracted tuberculosis. After overcoming the disease, he went to London with a desire to be a director. But he could not find a course that would prepare him for directing, so he entered the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he studied acting.

In later years, he referred to his student days as his "period of starvation." For six weeks he slept in a coal cellar. The academy finally arranged for him to have a rent-free room.

In 1956 he joined Joan Littlewood's Theater Workshop and appeared in a production of "The Quare Fellow" at the Theater Royal in Stratford. He was seen there by Lee Strasberg, then the director of the Actors Studio, who found him impressive, although one critic said Mr. Harris had a face that looked like "five miles of bad Irish country road."

His face notwithstanding, he was asked to appear in more London stage productions, including Arthur Miller's "View From the Bridge" in 1956 and Luigi Pirandello's "Man, Beast and Virtue" in 1958. That same year, he appeared in a television play in Britain called "The Iron Harp" and was so impressive that he was signed to a contract with Associated British Pictures Corporation, which gave him a small part in a movie, "Alive and Kicking." It was not what filmgoers would eventually expect to see Richard Harris in, since it focused primarily on three elderly women who free themselves from a home for the aged.

In the late 1950's he appeared in "Shake Hands With the Devil," about the Irish rebellion. He played a rebel, and when the film was released in the United States, some moviegoers thought they could see a bit of Marlon Brando in Mr. Harris.

He got a chance to go to Hollywood and appeared in "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" (1959), which starred Gary Cooper. In 1961 he also got a small part in "The Guns of Navarone," starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, among others. In 1962 he earned another small role, this one in "Mutiny on the Bounty," which starred Marlon Brando. Although the movie got mixed reviews, Mr. Harris received excellent ones. He said publicly, however, that he regarded the movie as a waste of time.

Always acerbic, he once said of Michael Caine, "He makes films you wouldn't rent on video."

By the 1970's American audiences knew who he was, but he was having serious trouble with alcohol and, on at least one occasion, cocaine. Late in life, he looked back on all this and said: "I made films I did not want to see, I took planes to places I didn't want to visit, I bought houses I didn't live in. I was numb, and it didn't seem to matter."

Film directors would add at least a week to their shooting schedules if Mr. Harris was a member of the cast, just to account for the days they assumed he would be drunk. He did quite a bit of drinking with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, he said. Even after he stopped drinking heavily, he still liked to go to humble pubs for a pint and conversation.

Eventually he stopped using drugs and cut back on his drinking, but remained ambivalent about movie stardom. "I hate movies," he once said. "They're a waste of time. I could be in a pub having more fun talking to idiots rather than sitting down and watching idiots perform."

But toward the end of his life, he also said, "I feel most alive when I'm working on a film."

During his rough years, he had a leading role in "The Molly Maguires" (1970), about the travails of Irish mineworkers in Pennsylvania in the 1870's. The movie got mixed reviews, although critics noted that the chemistry between Mr. Harris and Sean Connery was worth the price of a ticket. His performance in "A Man Called Horse" (1970) earned better reviews than the movie did.

In 1991 Mr. Harris was nominated for an Oscar for best actor for his role as a tough farmer in "The Field." In 2000 he played Marcus Aurelius in "Gladiator." Some critics thought he might earn yet another Academy Award nomination, but he did not.

Mr. Harris had an unsuccesful marriage to Joan Elizabeth Rees-Williams, the daughter of Lord Ogmore. They had three sons, the director Damian Harris and the actors Jared and Jamie Harris, who all survive him. Later he married Ann Turkel; they were divorced in 1981.

As an actor who personified the hell-raising of young men, Mr. Harris was asked recently what life was like as an old man. "I wish I could remember it," he said.

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Subject	Author	Date
Re: Richard Harris dies at 72	from the L.A. Times	October 26, 2002 7:53:12 EDT