Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016) was an English actor and director. Known for his deep, languid voice, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing in modern and classical theatre productions. He played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, he was nominated for a Tony Award.
Rickman's first cinema role came when he was cast as the German terrorist leader Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988). He appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He earned critical attention for his leading roles in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) and An Awfully Big Adventure (1995) before gaining acclaim for his supporting roles as Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (1995), and Éamon de Valera in Michael Collins (1996). He is also known for his comedic roles in Dogma (1999), Galaxy Quest (1999), and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005). He played Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series (2001–2011). During this time he also appeared in Love Actually (2003), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), and Alice in Wonderland (2010). His final film roles were Eye in the Sky (2015), and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016).
Rickman made his television acting debut playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1978) as part of the BBC's Shakespeare series. His breakthrough role was Obadiah Slope in the BBC television adaptation of The Barchester Chronicles (1982). He later starred in television films, playing the title character in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), which won him a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and Alfred Blalock in Something the Lord Made (2004). In 2009, The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016 at age 69.
Early life and education :
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was born on 21 February 1946 in the Acton district of London, to housewife Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett) and factory worker, house painter and decorator, and former Second World War aircraft fitter Bernard William Rickman. His mother was Welsh, and his paternal grandmother was Irish. Rickman would later say in April 2015, "I was talking to Sharleen Spiteri about being a Celt, how you smell each other out, because my mother's family is Welsh. There's not a lot of English blood in me." His father was Catholic and his mother was a Methodist. He had two brothers named David and Michael and a sister named Sheila.
Rickman was born with a tight jaw, contributing to the deep tone of voice and languid delivery for which he would become famous. Rickman himself said that a vocal coach told him he had a "spastic soft palate". When he was eight years old, his father died of cancer, leaving his mother to raise him and his three siblings mostly alone. According to biographer Maureen Paton, the family was "rehoused by the council and moved to an Acton estate to the west of Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where his mother struggled to bring up four children on her own by working for the Post Office". Margaret Rickman married again in 1960, but divorced Rickman's stepfather after three years.
Before Rickman met his longtime partner Rima Horton at age 16, he stated that his first crush was at 10 years old on a girl named Amanda at his school's sports day. As a child, he excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting. Rickman was educated at West Acton First School followed by Derwentwater Primary School in Acton, and then Latymer Upper School in London through the Direct Grant system, where he became involved in drama. Rickman went on to attend Chelsea College of Art and Design from 1965 to 1968. He then attended the Royal College of Art from 1968 to 1970. His training allowed him to work as a graphic designer for the Royal College of Art's in-house magazine, ARK, and the Notting Hill Herald, which he considered a more stable occupation than acting; he later said that drama school "wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18".
Following graduation, Rickman and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti, but after three years of successful business, he decided that he was going to pursue acting professionally. He wrote to request an audition with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), which he attended from 1972 until 1974. While there, he supported himself by working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson.
