ALAN RICKMAN

15 Jan

(21 February 1946 - 14 January 2016)

British actor and director who first studied graphic design and ran his own business until an audition at RADA took him into acting. After working with fringe companies he joined the RSC and made a mark in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, with Lindsay Duncan. Television work saw him in Thérèse Raquin, Shelley, Smiley’s People and The Barchester Chronicles. The Bruce Willis film Die Hard (1988) cemented his cinema career in the role of German terrorist Hans Gruber. More films and TV followed and he made his mark as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves opposite Kevin Costner. “Call off Christmas!” was his most famous line. He will be remembered for this and as the resurrected lover of Juliet Stevenson in Truly, Madly, Deeply. His film career notched up many edgy characters in Close My Eyes, Bob Roberts, An Awfully Big Adventure, Sense and Sensibility, Rasputin (on TV, winning a Golden Globe award), Galaxy Quest, and the Harry Potter series as Severus Snape. He was the two-timing husband in Love Actually and sang in the role of Judge Turpin in the film of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. In 2014 he directed A Little Chaos, also appearing as King Louis XIV of France.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

ALAN RICKMAN

FRANCO CITTI

CONRAD PHILLIPS