Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016)
was an English actor and director, known for playing a
 variety of roles on stage and screen, often as a complex
antagonist. Rickman was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company,
 performing in modern and classical theatre productions. His first
 big television part came in 1982, but his big break was as the
Vicomte de Valmont in the stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses
in 1985, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman gained
 wider notice for his film performances as Hans Gruber in Die Hard
and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series.

Rickman's other film roles included the Sheriff of Nottingham in
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply,
Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, Harry in Love
Actually, P. L. O'Hara in An Awfully Big Adventure, Alexander Dane
in Galaxy Quest, and Judge Turpin in the film adaptation of Stephen
Sondheim's musical of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

In 1995, Rickman earned a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a
Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of the title character
in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny. He won a BAFTA Award for his
role in Robin Hood.

Rickman died of cancer on 14 January 2016 at the age of 69.
 His final film, Alice Through the Looking Glass, will be released
in the United States in May 2016.


Rickman's career was filled with a wide variety of roles. He
played romantic leads like Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility
 (1995) and Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991); numerous villains
in Hollywood big-budget films, like German terrorist Hans Gruber in
 Die Hard (1988) and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince
of Thieves (1991); and the occasional television role such as the
"mad monk" Rasputin in the HBO biopic Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny
(1996), for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
 He was the "master of ceremonies" on Mike Oldfield's
album Tubular Bells II (1992), on which he read a
list of instruments on the album.

His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the AFI's 100
Years...100 Heroes & Villains list as the 46th best villain
 in film history, though he revealed he almost did not take
 the role as he did not think Die Hard was the kind of film
 he wanted to make.His performance as the Sheriff of
Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also earned him
praise as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films.


Rickman took issue with being typecast as a "villain actor",
citing the fact that he had not portrayed a stock villain
character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991.[citation needed]
 His portrayal of Severus Snape, the potions master in the Harry Potter
series (2001–11), was dark, but the character's motivations were not
clear early on.[21] During his career Rickman played comedic roles,
 sending up classically trained British actors[according to whom?]
who take on "lesser roles" as the character Sir Alexander Dane/Dr.
Lazarus in the science fiction parody Galaxy Quest (1999),
portraying the angel Metatron, the voice of God, in Dogma
(also 1999), appearing as Emma Thompson's foolish husband
Harry in Love Actually (2003), providing the voice of Marvin
 the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(2005), and the egotistical, Nobel Prize-winning father in Nobel Son (2007).


Rickman was nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred
Blalock in HBO's Something the Lord Made (2004). He also starred
in the independent film Snow Cake (2006) with Sigourney Weaver and
Carrie-Anne Moss, which had its debut at the Berlin International
Film Festival, and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006),
directed by Tom Tykwer. Rickman appeared as the evil Judge Turpin
in the critically acclaimed Tim Burton film Sweeney Todd: The Demon
Barber of Fleet Street (2007) alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena
Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall. Rickman provided the voice of Absolem
the Caterpillar in Burton's film Alice in Wonderland (2010).


He performed onstage in Noël Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives,
which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London
at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002; he reunited
 with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan and
director Howard Davies in the Tony Award-winning production.
His previous stage performance was in Antony and Cleopatra in
1998 as Mark Antony with Dame Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in
the Royal National Theatre's production at the Olivier Theatre
 in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998.
Rickman appeared in Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings (2000),
a Christmas special with Victoria Wood, playing an aged colonel
in the battle of Waterloo who is forced to break off his engagement
to Honeysuckle Weeks' character.


Rickman also directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida
Theatre in 1995 and the film version of the same play,
released in 1997, starring Emma Thompson and her real-life
 mother Phyllida Law.[citation needed] With Katharine Viner
he compiled the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie, and directed
the premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre, which
opened in April 2005. He won the Theatre Goers' Choice
Awards for Best Director. Rickman befriended the Corrie
family and earned their trust, and the show was warmly
received in London in 2005. But the next year, its original
 New York production was "postponed" over the possibility
of boycotts and protests from those who saw it as "anti-Israeli
agit-prop". Rickman denounced "censorship born out of fear".
Tony Kushner, Harold Pinter and Vanessa Redgrave, among others,
criticised the decision to indefinitely delay the show. The
one-woman play was put on later that year at another theater
 to mixed reviews, and has since been staged at venues around the world.


In 2009, Rickman was awarded the James Joyce Award by
University College Dublin's Literary and Historical Society.


In October and November 2010, Rickman starred in the eponymous
role in Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre,
 Dublin alongside Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw.
The Irish Independent called Rickman's performance breathtaking.
This production subsequently travelled to the Brooklyn Academy
of Music for performances in January and February 2011.[citation needed]
Rickman and Kate Winslet at the 2014 Toronto International Film
Festival.

In 2011, Rickman again appeared as Severus Snape in
 the final instalment in the Harry Potter series,
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
Throughout the series, his portrayal of Snape
garnered widespread critical acclaim.[
Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times said Rickman
 "as always, makes the most lasting impression,"
 while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called Rickman
"sublime at giving us a glimpse at last into the secret
 nurturing heart that ... Snape masks with a sneer."


Media coverage characterised Rickman's performance as worthy of
nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
 His first award nominations for his role as Snape came at
 the 2011 Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards, 2011
Saturn Awards, 2011 Scream Awards and 2011 St. Louis Gateway
 Film Critics Association Awards in the Best Supporting Actor category.


On 21 November 2011, Rickman opened in Seminar, a new play by
Theresa Rebeck, at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway.
 Rickman, who left the production on 1 April, won the
Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Actor in a Play
 and was nominated for a Drama League Award.

Rickman starred with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in a remake of 1966's
Gambit by Michael Hoffman.
 In 2013, he played Hilly Kristal, the
founder of the famous East Village punk-rock club CBGB, in the CBGB
film with Rupert Grint

In the media
Rickman posing for a fan after a performance of John Gabriel Borkman in 2011

Rickman was chosen by Empire as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in
film history (No. 34) in 1995 and ranked No. 59 in Empire's "The
Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October 1997. In 2009
and 2010 Rickman ranked once again as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars
 by Empire, both times placing No. 8 out of the 50 actors chosen.
 Rickman was elected to the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic
 Art (RADA) in 1993; he was subsequently RADA's Vice-Chairman and a
member of its Artistic Advisory and Training committees and Development
 Board.
He was voted No. 19 in Empire magazine's Greatest Living Movie
Stars over the age of 50 and was twice nominated for Broadway's
Tony Award as Best Actor (Play): in 1987 for Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
 and in 2002 for a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. The Guardian
named Rickman as an "honourable mention" in a list of the best actors
never to have received an Academy Award nomination.


Two researchers, a linguist and a sound engineer, found
"the perfect [male] voice" to be a combination of Rickman's
and Jeremy Irons's voices based on a sample of 50 voices.


Rickman featured in several musical works, including a song
composed by Adam Leonard entitled "Not Alan Rickman".
 The actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part,
announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's
Tubular Bells II on the track The Bell.
 Rickman was one of the many artists
who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002
album When Love Speaks, and is also featured
prominently in a music video by Texas entitled
"In Demand",
 which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000.
Personal life

In 1965, at the age of 19, Rickman met 18-year-old
Rima Horton, who became his first girlfriend and would
later be a Labour Party councillor on the Kensington and
Chelsea London Borough Council (1986–2006) and an economics
lecturer at the nearby Kingston University.
They lived
together from 1977 until his death. In 2015,
 Rickman confirmed that they had married in a private
 ceremony in New York City in 2012.


He was an active patron of the research foundation Saving Faces;
 and honorary president of the International Performers'
 Aid Trust, a charity that works to fight poverty amongst
performing artists all over the world.
When discussing politics, Rickman said he "was born
a card-carrying member of the Labour Party".


Rickman was the godfather of fellow actor Tom Burke.

On 14 January 2016, Rickman died of cancer in London.
 Soon after, his fans created a memorial underneath the
"Platform 9¾" sign at London King's Cross railway station.