Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor born on 21 February 1946 in Brentford, London, who grew up in Acton. His parents were Margaret Doreen Rose, a housewife of Welsh descent, and Bernard William Rickman, a factory worker, house painter, and former Second World War aircraft fitter. Rickman's father died of cancer when Rickman was eight years old, leaving his mother to raise him and his three siblings largely on her own. His mother later remarried in 1960 but divorced after three years. As a child, Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, and he was educated at West Acton First School, Derwentwater Primary School, and Latymer Upper School, where he first became involved in drama. He went on to study at the Chelsea College of Art and Design from 1965 to 1968, followed by the Royal College of Art from 1968 to 1970, where his training led to work as a graphic designer for the college's in-house magazine, ARK, and for the Notting Hill Herald. After graduating, he and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti, but after three years he chose to pursue acting professionally. He was born with a tight jaw, a physical characteristic that contributed to the deep tone and languid delivery that would become defining features of his voice.

Rickman applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and attended from 1972 to 1974, supporting himself during that period by working as a dresser for Nigel Hawthorne and Ralph Richardson. Following his graduation from RADA, he worked extensively with British repertory and experimental theatre groups. His early engagements included a 1974 production of Babes in the Wood at the Library Theatre in Manchester, followed by work at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester from 1974 to 1975, where he appeared in productions of Romeo and Juliet, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Guys and Dolls. He subsequently worked at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in 1976 and at Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 1976 to 1977. His repertory work also included Chekhov's The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and he appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was cast as Jaques in As You Like It and contributed an essay on his process to the RSC's publication Players of Shakespeare 2.

Rickman made his television debut playing Tybalt in a 1978 BBC production of Romeo and Juliet, and he made a brief appearance in the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Smiley's People in 1982. That same year, his breakthrough television role came in The Barchester Chronicles, the BBC's adaptation of Trollope's first two Barchester novels, in which he played the Reverend Obadiah Slope. He also appeared in the 1981 BBC adaptation of Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin, opposite Kate Nelligan and Brian Cox.

In 1985, Rickman was given the male lead of the Vicomte de Valmont in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Howard Davies. After the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and then to Broadway in 1987, Rickman earned both a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Play and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1987 to 2011, also included appearances in Private Lives and Seminar, the latter earning him a second Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play in 2002.

Rickman made his feature film debut in 1988 as the German criminal mastermind Hans Gruber in Die Hard, starring opposite Bruce Willis. The role earned him critical acclaim, and the character was later ranked 46th on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list. Rickman later revealed he had nearly declined the part, uncertain it was the kind of film he wanted to make. In 1990, he played the Australian Elliott Marston opposite Tom Selleck in Quigley Down Under. The following year he was cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Reynolds's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, appearing alongside Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman, and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the performance. He also earned critical acclaim for his work in Truly, Madly, Deeply in 1991, and for An Awfully Big Adventure, Sense and Sensibility, and Michael Collins, all released in 1995 and 1996 respectively.

Beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 2001, Rickman portrayed Severus Snape across all eight films in the Harry Potter series, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in 2011. His other notable film roles included parts in Dogma and Galaxy Quest, both released in 1999, Love Actually in 2003, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 2005, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 2007, Alice in Wonderland in 2010 and its 2016 sequel, and Eye in the Sky in 2015. He also directed two films, The Winter Guest in 1997 and A Little Chaos in 2014.

On television, Rickman portrayed Grigori Rasputin in the 1996 HBO film Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny, a performance that brought him a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He later played Alfred Blalock in the HBO film Something the Lord Made in 2004. In 2009, The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Rickman met his longtime partner, Rima Horton, at the age of 19. He died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016, at the age of 69.