Ruth Leon recommends… Michael Gambon – Screen Bites
Ruth Leon recommendsMichael Gambon – Screen Bites
The great Michael Gambon died this week. Over his six-decade-long career, Sir Michael Gambon became an actor known for playing writers, wizards, and everything in between. Much beloved, he became a household name later in life, and his presence will truly be missed by other actors as well as a huge audience including every child who has ever seen a Harry Potter movie (there are at least six who haven’t, somewhere in Turkmenistan).
Whatever the role, and however he chose to inhabit it, Gambon was always and completely himself, one of the greatest stage actors of his generation who also became famous for his film and television roles. He was superb on the small screen, somehow inviting the television audience into his private world, particularly in The Singing Detective.
His movie career tends to have been subsumed by seven years playing Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series. But there were many even better moments in his movie career. Here are a few takeaways which show what a wonderfully versatile actor he was, from some movies you may have missed.
So that you don’t stay up all night puzzling over which movies they are, they include The Good Shepherd (2006), Plunkett And Macleane (1999), Charlotte Gray (2001), Hail, Caesar! (2016), Dad’s Army (2016), King Of Thieves (2018) and Victoria And Abdul (2017).
RIP, dear Michael Gambon, I think you would like to know that you will be remembered fondly by those who knew and worked with you, and those who just thought they did.
Layer Cake and Path To War, are amazing performances by Gambon.
I loved Michael Gambon in many things, notably Turtle Diary, The Heat of the Day, Page Eight and Gosford Park. But I saw him in many others, and he was always luminous.
So was David McCallum. It has been a bad week for losing some of our most treasured actors. I always pay tribute by watching something special from my memory of their work or, occasionally, something of theirs I have not seen before. So as a viewer it makes for a good weekend. But I lament that there will be no more from these great artists.