Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was born on 21 February 1946 in Brentford, London, and grew up in Acton. His mother, Margaret Doreen Rose, was a housewife of Welsh descent, and his father, Bernard William, worked as a factory worker, house painter, decorator, and former Second World War aircraft fitter. Rickman had two brothers, David and Michael, and a sister, Sheila. His father was Catholic and his mother Methodist. When Rickman was eight, his father died of cancer, leaving his mother to raise the children mostly alone. The family was rehoused by the council to an Acton estate near Wormwood Scrubs Prison, and his mother worked for the Post Office. She remarried in 1960 but divorced after three years.

As a child, Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting. He attended West Acton First School, Derwentwater Primary School, and Latymer Upper School through the Direct Grant system, where he got involved in drama. He later studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design (1965–1968) and the Royal College of Art (1968–1970), training as a graphic designer. He worked on the Royal College of Art’s magazine, ARK, and the *Notting Hill Herald*, seeing design as a stable career. After graduation, he and friends opened a design studio called Graphiti. After three successful years, he decided to pursue acting and auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), attending from 1972 to 1974. To support himself, he worked as a dresser for Nigel Hawthorne and Ralph Richardson.

After RADA, Rickman worked extensively in British repertory and experimental theatre. His first role was in a 1974 production of *Babes in the Wood* at the Library Theatre, Manchester. He then joined the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester (1974–1975), acting in *Romeo and Juliet*, *Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat*, and *Guys and Dolls*. He moved to the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield in 1976 and then to Birmingham Repertory Theatre (1976–1977). His repertory work 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. He performed with the Court Drama Group in 1978, taking roles in *Romeo and Juliet* and *A View from the Bridge*.

Rickman made his Broadway debut in 1987 as Le Vicomte de Valmont in Christopher Hampton’s *Les Liaisons Dangereuses*, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Play. He made his film debut as Hans Gruber in *Die Hard* (1988). He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing 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 played Severus Snape in all eight *Harry Potter* films (2001–2011) and took memorable roles 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) and its 2016 sequel, and *Eye in the Sky* (2015). He directed the films *The Winter Guest* (1997) and *A Little Chaos* (2014). On television, he portrayed Grigori Rasputin in the HBO film *Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny* (1996), winning a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, and Alfred Blalock in the HBO film *Something the Lord Made* (2004).

On stage, he starred as a newly married man in the revival of Noël Coward’s *Private Lives* (2002) on the West End and Broadway, earning a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor. For his role as an imperious professor in Theresa Rebeck’s *Seminar* (2011), he was nominated for the Drama League Award. Rickman was known for his deep tone of voice and languid delivery; a vocal coach once told him he had a “spastic soft palate.” He met his longtime partner, Rima Horton, at age 19. He was elected to the RADA council in 1993 and served as vice-chairman until his death. 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 age 69.