And ALAN RICKMAN

[Chris Knipp]

Alan Rickman 1947-2016

A few days after the news of David Bowie's departure we learn that ALAN RICKMAN, the breat English stage and film actor, has died, also at 69, also of cancer. See Catherine Shoard's article about Rickman for the GUARDIAN. He will be known to the masses as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films, in which he was a real mainstay. He first became famous playing Bruce Willis's sardonic, nasty enemy in the DIE HARD films, a role he got, it's said, two days after he first arrived in Los Angeles at the age of forty-one. Shoard notes Rickman had one of the most distinctive voices among UK actors. Nobody could project a mean, sardonic quality better -- with that voice. The voice was sexy and plulmmy too: some linguistics professors concluded that the most attractive voice would combine his, Jeremy Irons's, and Michael Gambon's. He had class -- or could project it: he was born in a council estate in West London and his father was a factory worker. But he made a breakthrough playing the disdainful aristocrat Vicomte de Valmont in Christopher Hampton's play based on Choderlos de Laclos' LES LIAISONS DANGEUREUSES. He recently had a string of great stage roles that moved successfully from London to Broadway. He had a long and happy marriage that went back to the Sixties. He was politically faithful to the left and a self-declared "lifelong member of the Labour party."

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was one of the first to pay tribute on Twitter, followed by former leader Ed Miliband.

Others offering condolences included Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard, Charlie Sheen, Mia Farrow and Richard E Grant. Many drew parallels between the deaths of Rickman and David Bowie, from the same disease at the same age and in the same week.

Alan Rickman was a great English actor who had many terrific roles and a good and admired man. He should have had more and he will be sorely missed. .