Irish actor and versatile talent, the winner of an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, acclaim as a pop recording artist and knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in June 1981.
Harris grew up in Limerick, Ireland, in the middle of five brothers and two sisters. He decided to pursue a career in acting in 1949 after seeing Irish actor Michael MacLiammoir play “Henry IV” by Luigi Pirandello. Moving to London that same year, he entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, beginning his professional career in the late ‘50s in the London stage production of Brendan Behan’s “The Quare Fellow.” For the next three years he remained with the Stratford East Theater Workshop, performing in Russia,
Switzerland and France. His big break came in London’s West End production of Pirandello’s “Man, Beast and Virtue.” English theater critic Kenneth Tynan was so awed by Harris’ performance he championed his career, which resulted in Harris playing the lead role in J.P. Donleavy’s “The Ginger Man,” for which he won Best Actor of the Year award, a kudos he also won for his marathon performance in Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman.”
Harris made his film debut in the now classic 1962 film “The Sporting Life,” which earned him nominations for Best Actor award from the Cannes, Moscow, Prague, and Italian Film Festivals in addition to the American and British Film Academies. His stunning
portrayal of King Arthur in the film “Camelot” in 1967 earned him an Oscar and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and established his international reputation. A plethora of films followed, including “A Man Called Horse,” ” The Molly Maguires,” “Cromwell,” “The Cassandra Crossing,” and “Juggernaut.” The multi-talented actor’s rendition of the Jimmy Webb song “MacArthur Park” became a worldwide hit in 1968, reaching No.1 in America that same year.
Harris won a Grammy for Best Spoken Work in 1973 for his reading of the book “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” A string of “B” movies led to a career lapse in the mid to late ‘70s. “I drifted from one piece of crap to another,” he said. A long established reputation of being a hard-drinking hell-raiser on stage and off coupled with his self-proclaimed possession of a “fine madness,” led to Harris’ decision to move to a secluded island in the Bahamas, where he wrote his first book of poetry, “In the
Remembrance Of My Days,” which became a bestseller in 1974, followed by the second volume, “Fragments of a Broken Snapshot.”
Basking in his versatility, he officially retired from his film career in 1981. But not theater. Within a year he replaced Richard Burton, who had suffered an injury, in the Los Angeles stage production of “Camelot” and completed the national tour. His success in “Camelot” tour led to Broadway in 1985 and a return to the London stage in the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Moving to Southern California in the ‘80s, Harris proved himself to be a shrewd investor in real estate. He came out of retirement from films in early 1990 for the lead role in “The Field” which received critical acclaim along with “Trojan Eddie” in the mid-‘90s. Harris prefers to pick and choose his roles. “I don’t want a movie career. I’m rich enough never to have to work again….so I’ll only do something really interesting.”
Harris’ first marriage was to Elizabeth Ogmore, who bore him three sons. His second marriage was to Ann Turkle. Both marriages ended in divorce as a result of Harris’ drinking and infidelities.
A diagnosis of diabetes in 1982 put an official end to his alcohol abuse. He became ill in August 2002, entering London’s University hospital with complaints of a severe chest infection. He has received some initial doses of chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, which affects the lymph glands. He is expected to be discharged in time to work on the third Harry Potter film, “The Prisoner of Azkaban.” The first “Potter” movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” was a hit for Christmas 2001, and the second film, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” was released November 2002.
On 25 October 2002, the beloved actor died peacefully in a London hospital where he was being treated for Hodgkin’s Disease.
Link to Wikipedia biography