Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Professor Dumbledore actor is dead

Richard Harris, the actor who played Professor Dumbledore, died in October 2002, aged 72.

The Irish-born actor had been battling Hodgkin’s disease - lymphatic cancer.

Mr Harris was a stage and film star from the 1960s - and found new fame as the Hogwarts headteacher Albus Dumbledore. The second in the series, Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, has already been finished. But his death is a major blow to the third Potter movie, The Prisoner Of Azkaban, which begins filming in 2003.

A double was needed for some scenes of The Chamber Of Secrets because Mr Harris felt unwell. But he seemed to be on the mend and he vowed to beat cancer. Just a few days later he died after being rushed to London’s University College Hospital. Daniel Radcliffe was "upset and shocked" when he heard the news. The tearful 13-year-old star had become firm friends with the eccentric Irishman on the set of the first Potter film.

Not long before his death, the Oscar-nominated actor, star of This Sporting Life and Gladiator, told how he met Daniel working on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

"The director got us to read some scenes," he said. "When I finished, young Daniel told me: ‘That was quite a good reading. I think you'll be good'."

Richard Harris felt at ease with young Potter stars Daniel, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson because of his relationship with granddaughter Ella, 12, who bullied him to play Dumbledore.

Mr Harris recalled: "Ella, whom I worship with my life, looked me in the eye and said: 'If you don't play Dumbledore, I will never speak with you again'."