ALAN RICKMAN

(21 February 1946 - 14 January 2016)

British actor and director who first studied graphic design and ran his own business until an audition at RADA took him into acting. After working with fringe companies he joined the RSC and made a mark in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, with Lindsay Duncan. Television work saw him in Thérèse Raquin, Shelley, Smiley’s People and The Barchester Chronicles. The Bruce Willis film Die Hard (1988) cemented his cinema career in the role of German terrorist Hans Gruber. More films and TV followed and he made his mark as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves opposite Kevin Costner. “Call off Christmas!” was his most famous line. He will be remembered for this and as the resurrected lover of Juliet Stevenson in Truly, Madly, Deeply. His film career notched up many edgy characters in Close My Eyes, Bob Roberts, An Awfully Big Adventure, Sense and Sensibility, Rasputin (on TV, winning a Golden Globe award), Galaxy Quest, and the Harry Potter series as Severus Snape. He was the two-timing husband in Love Actually and sang in the role of Judge Turpin in the film of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. In 2014 he directed A Little Chaos, also appearing as King Louis XIV of France.

MICHAEL DARVELL