Robbie Coltrane, whose acting career spanned everything from Bond films toCracker to Harry Potter, has died aged 72.
The news was confirmed by his agent on Friday.
Born Anthony Robert McMillan in the prosperous Glaswegian suburb ofRutherglen, Coltrane was educated at Glenalmond College, an independentboarding school whose corporal punishment he described as “legalizedviolence”, before going to the Glasgow School of Art. He had second thoughtsabout his ability as a painter, and switched to live performance, acting inradical theater companies (including a troupe from San Quentin State prison)and doing standup, taking the pseudonym Coltrane as homage to celebrated jazzmusician John Coltrane.
His first screen credit was Waterloo Sunset, the Richard Eyre-directed Playfor Today in 1979, in which he played opposite Queenie Watts’s care-homeescapee. Thereafter, he had small appearances in films and TV shows, includingFlash Gordon, Are You Being Served?, Krull and Britannia Hospital, hisdistinctive appearance and sheer size helping him stand out from the crowd.Coltrane’s comedy skills began to take precedence, as he found success in theearly 1980s in TV sketch shows such as Alfresco and A Kick Up the Eighties.These placed him firmly in the school of 80s alternative comedy alongside BenElton, Emma Thompson and Rik Mayall – an identity reinforced by his regularparticipation in Comic Strip Presents films including such key entries as FiveGo Mad in Dorset, The Beat Generation and The Bullshitters .
Related: Robbie Coltrane: ‘I take no nonsense’
However, Coltrane’s abilities as an actor were increasingly in evidence, andhe had considerable success in 1987 with Tutti Frutti, the John Byrne-scripted, Bafta-winning TV series about a washed-up Scottish rock’n’roll band.Coltrane found himself increasingly sought after for bigger roles in higher-profile projects, from Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio (in which he played acardinal) to Falstaff in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V. However, it was tworeligious-themed comedy films – Nuns on the Run and The Pope Must Die – thatpropelled Coltrane to leading-man status, and put him on the map in the US.
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Coltrane’s raised status was confirmed by his casting as the criminalpsychologist “Fitz” Fitzgerald in Jimmy McGovern’s TV series Cracker, whichfirst aired in 1993. A defiantly non-comic role, Fitzgerald was agroundbreaking creation: brilliant at his job but a mess in his personal life.Coltrane won the best TV actor Bafta in 1994, 1995 and 1996 for the role.Fitzgerald’s addictive lifestyle also reflected the actor’s: Coltrane admittedto being a heavy drinker in the 1980s, and remained famously combative, oncethreatening to beat up Piers Morgan in a London restaurant. He then foundhimself cast in two Bond films, GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough, asmorally ambiguous KGB agent Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky.
Coltrane settled into a mid-period career of alternating roles in plushHollywood productions (Message in a Bottle, From Hell, Ocean’s Twelve) witheasygoing TV appearances (Alice in Wonderland, The Gruffalo). He also indulgedhis interest in vintage cars in the 1997 series Coltrane’s Planes andAutomobiles. However, he found himself at the top of the list for the castingof Hogwarts’ school caretaker Rubeus Hagrid in the film adaptation of JKRowling’s Harry Potter series. The first in the series, Harry Potter and thePhilosopher’s Stone, was released in 2001, and gained Coltrane a new audienceof younger fans, and helped re-energise his career, particularly on BritishTV. In 2009, he played investigating detective DI Hain in David Pirie’sMurderland, and his performance as a TV star accused of sexual abuse in the2016 Channel 4 show National Treasure was greeted with acclaim.
Coltrane married the sculptor Rhona Gemmell in 1999, but they separated in2003. They had two children.