Richard Griffiths, a British actor who played Uncle Vernon Dursley in the “Harry Potter” movie series, died at 65.
Simon Beresford, Griffiths agent, had announced on March 29 that the actor died on March 28, 2013, according to TODAY Entertainment.
Griffiths died from complications following a heart surgery at the University Hospital in Conventry, located in central England.
Beresford said that Griffiths was a “a remarkable man and one of our greatest and best-loved actors,” according to TODAY Entertainment.
Griffiths entered acting in film from his career in radio and classical stage. On stage, he had the reputation as a “Shakespearean clown, with larger-than-life portrayals of Henry VIII, Falstaff in ”The Merry Wives of Windsor“ and Bottom in ”A Midsummer Night’s Dream“ with the Royal Shakespeare Company,” according to his bio on IMDb.com.
He married Heather Gibson in 1980 after they met during a production of “Lady Windermere’s Fan” in 1973, according the HollyWoodReporter.com.
Sir Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, said Griffiths’s death would devastate his “army of friends,” according to the BBC.
“Richard Griffiths wasn’t only one of the most loved and recognisable British actors - he was also one of the very greatest,” he said.
“His performance in The History Boys was quite overwhelming: a masterpiece of wit, delicacy, mischief and desolation, often simultaneously. His anecdotes were legendary. They were, literally, endless. They would go on for hours, apparently without destination, constantly side-splitting,” Hytner said.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jEoCd1HN_fI[/video]
Griffiths parents were deaf, and he learned sign language at a young age. He was also sensitive to dialects in the spoken language, which helped in his acting career.
Griffiths films include: “Gorky Pork” (1983), “Withnail & I” (1987), “King Ralph” (1991), “Guarding Trees” (1994), “Sleepy Hollow” (1999), “Harry Potter” series, and “Pie in the Sky” (1994).
