Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016) was an English actor. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he was renowned for his stage and screen roles and for his deep and distinctive voice. He received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award.

A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Rickman began his career in theatre, performing in classical and modern plays. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play for his portrayal of the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and made his film debut as the German criminal mastermind Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988). He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). He earned critical acclaim for Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991), An Awfully Big Adventure, Sense and Sensibility (both 1995), and Michael Collins (1996). He went on to play Severus Snape in all eight films of the Harry Potter series, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). His other notable film roles include those in Quigley Down Under (1990), Dogma, Galaxy Quest (both 1999), Love Actually (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010), its 2016 sequel, and Eye in the Sky (2015). He directed the films The Winter Guest (1997) and A Little Chaos (2014).

Rickman made his television debut playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1978) as part of the BBC's Shakespeare series. His breakthrough role was Obadiah Slope in the BBC adaptation of The Barchester Chronicles (1982). He later starred in television films, portraying Grigori Rasputin in the HBO film Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), which won him a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award, and played Alfred Blalock in the HBO film Something the Lord Made (2004). In 2009, The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016, at the age of 69.

Early life and education

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was born on 21 February 1946 in Brentford, London, and grew up in Acton, London. His parents were housewife Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett) and factory worker, house painter and decorator, and former Second World War aircraft fitter Bernard William Rickman. His mother was Welsh, and his paternal grandmother was Irish. Rickman would later say in April 2015, "I was talking to Sharleen Spiteri about being a Celt, how you smell each other out, because my mother's family is Welsh. There's not a lot of English blood in me." His father was Catholic, and his mother was a Methodist. He had two brothers named David and Michael, and a sister named Sheila.

Rickman was born with a tight jaw, contributing to the deep tone of voice and languid delivery for which he would become famous. He said that a vocal coach told him he had a "spastic soft palate". When Rickman was eight years old, his father died of cancer, leaving his mother to raise him and his three siblings mostly alone. According to biographer Maureen Paton, the family was "rehoused by the council and moved to an Acton estate to the west of Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where his mother struggled to bring up four children on her own by working for the Post Office". Margaret Rickman married again in 1960, but divorced Rickman's stepfather after three years.

Rickman met his longtime partner Rima Horton at the age of 19; he stated that his first crush was at 10 years old on a girl named Amanda at his school's sports day. As a child, he excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting. Rickman was educated at West Acton First School followed by Derwentwater Primary School in Acton, and then Latymer Upper School in London through the Direct Grant system, where he became involved in drama. Rickman went on to attend Chelsea College of Art and Design from 1965 to 1968. He then attended the Royal College of Art from 1968 to 1970. His training allowed him to work as a graphic designer for the Royal College of Art's in-house magazine, ARK, and the Notting Hill Herald, which he considered a more stable occupation than acting; he later said that drama school "wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18".

Following graduation, Rickman and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti, but after three years of successful business, he decided that he was going to pursue acting professionally. He wrote to request an audition with RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), which he attended from 1972 until 1974. While there, he supported himself by working as a dresser for Nigel Hawthorne and Ralph Richardson.

Career

1980–1988: Theatre roles and film debut

After graduating from RADA, Rickman worked extensively with British repertory and experimental theatre groups in productions including Chekhov's The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. He performed with the Court Drama Group in 1978, gaining roles in Romeo and Juliet and A View from the Bridge, among other plays. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), he was cast as Jaques in As You Like It, contributing an essay about his process to the RSC's book Players of Shakespeare 2. He appeared in the 1981 BBC adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin, opposite Kate Nelligan and Brian Cox. He made a brief appearance in one episode of the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Smiley's People (1982). His breakthrough role was in The Barchester Chronicles (1982), the BBC's adaptation of Trollope's first two Barchester novels, as the Reverend Obadiah Slope.

Rickman was given the male lead, the Vicomte de Valmont, in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Howard Davies. After the RSC production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, Rickman received both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance. In 1988, Rickman played the antagonist Hans Gruber in the action thriller Die Hard in what was his first feature film. His portrayal, starring opposite Bruce Willis, earned him critical acclaim and a spot on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list as the 46th-best villain in film history. Rickman later revealed that he almost did not take the role, for he did not think Die Hard was the kind of film he wanted to make.

1990–2000: Career breakthrough

In 1990, he played the Australian Elliott Marston opposite Tom Selleck in Quigley Down Under (1990). The following year, Rickman was cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Reynolds's film adaptation of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). In the film, Rickman acted opposite Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman. Entertainment Weekly proclaimed that while Robin Hood "left critics and movie goers underwhelmed, Rickman's gleefully wicked villain became the summer's most talked-about performance". For his performance he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Upon winning the award Rickman stated, "This will be a healthy reminder to me that subtlety isn't everything". Despite gaining acclaim within the media for his ability to portray villainous roles in films Rickman took issue with being typecast as a villain. During this decade he would portray a range of characters that would defy media perceptions.

Rickman soon started to play leading roles such as Man, in the enigmatic film Closet Land (1991) alongside Madeleine Stowe; and he also was the romantic role of Jamie in the independent romance film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) which earned him another BAFTA Award nomination. The film, directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Rickman and Juliet Stevenson, proved to be a critical success. Rickman was able to break out of the mould of the movie villain, with critic Roger Ebert noting, "The man is Rickman, who you will look at on the screen, and know you have seen somewhere, and rattle your memory all during the movie without making the connection that he was the villain in Die Hard." Rickman also starred in Stephen Poliakoff's Close My Eyes (1991) with Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves. Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader praised the film and all three lead performances, calling them "edgy, powerful, and wholly convincing, with Rickman a particular standout." All three of Rickman's performances in Close My Eyes, Truly Madly Deeply and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves would win him the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor, and the same performances along with his work in Quigley Down Under would also win him the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actor of the Year.