FROM Die Hard’s arch villain to sarcastic wizard Severus Snape, Alan Rickman
was the perfect movie bad guy.
But off screen the versatile actor – who has died at the age of 69 – was a
perfect English gent.
And in his private life he was closer to the tender lover he played in Truly,
Madly, Deeply.
His off-screen romance with Rima Horton, an economics lecturer, lasted a
lifetime.
The pair met as teenagers, in 1965, and married secretly in 2015 – after a
50-year relationship.
He later revealed: “We are married. Just recently. It was great, because no
one was there.
“After the wedding in New York we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and ate
lunch.”
He presented her with a £130 gold wedding band which he revealed “she never
wears”.
Asked about his new bride, the actor, who was intensely private, described her
as “incredibly, unbelievably tolerant, possibly a candidate for sainthood”.
The devoted couple never had any children.
Despite his clipped tones, Alan was born into a working class family in Acton,
London, in 1946.
Dad Bernard, a factory worker, died when he was eight, leaving mum Doreen to
raise four kids on her own.
A talented artist, he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in
Hammersmith, where he caught the acting bug.
After deciding “drama school wasn’t considered the sensible thing to do
at 18”, he opeted to study at the Royal College of Art before becoming a
successful graphic designer.
But three years later he jacked it in to learn drama at RADA, working as a
dresser for Nigel Hawthorne and Ralph Richardson in his spare time, and
joined the Royal Shakespeare Company on graduation.
He landed his first major screen role in 1982, in TV’s The Barchester
Chronicles.
But it was the 1988 Bruce Willis movie, Die Hard, which proved his
breakthrough role.
Arch criminal Hans Gruber made Alan an international star and established him,
in the eyes of Hollywood, as the perfect screen villain.
But the versatile actor was not to be pigeon-holed.
Asked on one occasion on his villainous roles, he quipped: “I don’t play
villains. I play very interesting people.”
In a varied career he divided his time between the UK and the US, between
stage and screen and, latterly, between actor and director.
He played everything from tender lover Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply to the
manic murderous Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
He played for laughs as the disillusioned sci-fi star in the 1999 spoof Galaxy
Quest and won children’s hearts as tough potions tutor Severus Snape in the
Harry Potter movies.
When the Potter franchise ended, in 2011, he sent a touching letter to author
JK Rowling.
He wrote: “Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo
Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to
Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the
books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate
narrative in the surest of hands.
“It is an ancient need to be told in stories. But the story needs a great
storyteller.
“Thanks for all of it, Jo.”
Off screen, Alan was known as a bit of a joker.
He once turned up on crutches, wearing a neck brace, to pay tribute to Die
Hard star Bruce Willis – before ripping them off on stage.
On the Harry Potter set, he and Michael Gambon had Hogworts reverberating with
rude noises after placing a fart machine in Daniel Radcliffe’s sleeping bag.
In August last year the actor, renowned for his deep velvet tones, had host
Jimmy Fallon in stitches when he inhaled helium on his show and squeaked “Harry
Potter.”
Although Oscar glory eluded him, he bagged a Golden Globe in 1997 for playing
Russian legend Rasputin and won a BAFTA for his Robin Hood roles in 1992.
Despite his ‘luvvie’ reputation, he never took himself too seriously – voicing
a monarch in an episode of cult carton King of the Hill and a megalomaniac
pilot fish called Joe in the Danish animation Help! I’m A Fish.
Behind the camera, Alan directed Emma Thompson and her mum Phyllida Law in the
drama The Winter Guest and, in 2014, Kate Winslet in A Little Chaos, in
which he also starred.
In an interview about the film, Alan joked: “The trouble with the job of
directing is talking about it in hindsight. You think, ‘Why did I ever do
that? Why didn’t someone put me in a loony bin?’”
Despite suffering from cancer, the 69-year-old was working until the end.
He recently finished filming The Eye In The Sky, with Helen Mirren and Aaron
Paul, which will be out in April and he has returned to the voice role of
the Blue Caterpillar in Tim Burton’s Alice Through The Looking Glass,
released in May.
Following news of his death Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe posted a
touching tribute to his former co-star, calling him “one of the
loyalest and most supportive people I’ve ever met in the film industry.”
He added: “People create perceptions of actors based on the parts they
played so it might surprise some people to learn that contrary to some of
the sterner(or downright scary) characters he played, Alan was extremely
kind, generous, self-deprecating and funny.
“And certain things obviously became even funnier when delivered in his
unmistakable double-bass.”