Liberty Lighthouse Journal: DOSSIER: ALAN RICKMAN

“It's a great pleasure to me to work on film now as well as on the stage. But it is no soft option. It isn't easier. It's in many ways more difficult, and it's a different kind of a challenge. You have to think a lot quicker and be a lot more immediate. And watching Bruce [Bruce Willis] and Kevin [Kevin Costner] and Tom Selleck deal with that has been an education.”

BORN: February 21^st 1946 in Hammersmith, London, England

DIED: January 14^th 2016 in London, England of pancreatic cancer

BIRTH NAME: Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman

HEIGHT: 6' 1”

Alan was born in the Acton district of London to Margaret Doreen Rose, housewife and factory worker, house painter and decorator and to former Second World War aircraft fitter Bernard William Rickman. His mother was Welsh, and his paternal grandmother was Irish.

When he was eight years old, his father died of cancer and was raised by his mother and three siblings. His mother worked for the Post Office struggling to raise four children. She married again in 1960, but divorced after three years.

Alan had his first crush when he was 10 years old on a girl named Amanda at his school. He met his longtime partner Rima Horton at age 16. As a child, he was good at calligraphy and watercolor painting. Alan was educated at West Acton First School followed by Denwentwater Primary School in Acton, and then Latymer Upper School in London where he became involved in drama. Alan then attended Chelsea College of Art and Design from 1965 to 1968 and then on to 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 stated that drama school “wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18.”

After graduation, Alan and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti and after three years of successful business, he decided to pursue a career in acting. He wrote to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for an audition and attended that institution from 1972 to 1974. While there, he supported himself by working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson.

After graduating from RADA, Alan worked with British repertory and experimental theatre groups in productions like The Seagull and The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival.

In 1978, he performed with the Court Drama Group obtaining roles in Romeo and Juliet and A View from the Bridge, and other plays. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was cast in As You Like It. His breakthrough role was in The Barcester Chronicles (1982) for BBC.

After the RSC production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, Alan received both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance.

In 1988, Alan Played Hans Gruber in the action thriller Die Hard, his first feature film. Opposite Bruce Willis, he earned critical acclaim and a spot on the list of 100 Heroes & Villains as the 46^th best villain in film history.

In 1990, he played Australian Elliot Marston opposite Tom Selleck in Quigley Down Under. In 1991, Alan was cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, opposite Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman. For his performance he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Alan gained notoriety in villainous roles, he did not want to be typecast as a villain. During the 1990s he would defy media perceptions by portraying a range of characters. He also started playing romantic leads like Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) that earned him a BAFTA Award nomination. Also in 1991, Alan starred in Close My Eyes with Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves. All of the 1991 productions would win Alan Best Actor awards. His role in Quigley Down Under would earn him the London Film Critics' Award for Actor of the Year.

In 1992, Alan portrayed Èamon de Valera in Michael Collins starring Liam Neeson, Julia Roberts, and Stephen Rea.

Alan directed The Winter Guest at Almeida Theatre (1995) in London and the film version of the same play released in 1997. His stage performances in the 1990s include Antony and Cleopatra (1998) as Mark Antony with Helen Mirren as Cleopatra that ran from October to December 1998 at the Olivier Theatre in London.

During his career, Alan played comedic roles including the classic Sci-Fi parody Galaxy Quest (1999) with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver.

In 2001, Alan first appeared as Severus Snape, the potions master in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He played the role throughout the film series from 2001 to 2011.

In 2002, Alan performed onstage in Private Lives.

In 2003, Alan starred in the Christmas-themed romantic comedy Love Actually.

In 2005, he narrated his voice to Marvin the Paranoid Android in the science fiction comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Alan appeared as Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) with Johnny Depp and his Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall.

In 2009, Alan was awarded the James Joyce Award by the University College of Dublin.

In 2010, Alan provided the voice of Absolem the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.

In 2011, Alan appeared as Severus Snape in the final installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

In 2012 Alan starred with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in Gambit.

In 2014, he directed and starred in A Little Chaos starring Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, and Stanley Tucci.

PERSONAL LIFE

In 1965, at age 19, Alan met Rima Horton, who became his partner in the early 1970s and later became a politician in the Labour Party (1986-2006), later an economics lecturer at Kingston University in London. They lived together from 1977 until Alan's death. The couple had no children.

Alan was the godfather of Tom Burke and his brother Michael Rickman is a Conservative Party district councillor in Leicestershire.

Throughout 2015, Alan received treatment for prostrate cancer, ending in a prostatectomy in 2006.

In August of 2015, Alan had a minor stroke, which led to the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. On January 14^th 2016, he died in London at the age of 69. His remains were cremated and his ashes was given to Rima Horton.

Soon after his death, his fans created a memorial underneath the “Platform 9¾” sign at King's Cross railway station in London. Alan Rickman died four days before David Bowie who was the same age. His costars and associates were surprised at the news of his death because Alan did not reveal he had a terminal illness.

J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter called Alan “a magnificent actor and a wonderful man.”

Emma Watson wrote: “I feel so lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor.”

Kate Winslet, who gave a tearful tribute at the London Film Critics' Circle Awards, remembered Alan as warm and generous and adding: “And that voice! Oh, that voice.”

Sir Ian McKellen wrote: “Behind his mournful face, which was just as beautiful when wracked with mirth, there was a super-active spirit, questing and achieving, a super-hero, unassuming but deadly effective.”

TRIVIA

Although a highly successful film actor, he had frequently passed up film offers to return to the theater. To Alan the theatre was “magical” and his “first love”.
When J.K. Rowling was writing the character of Snape, she envisioned Alan Rickman portraying him, but Alan was only given the role after Tim Roth backed out to star in Planet of the Apes (2001).
While filming Die Hard (1988), Alan was found proficient at mimicking American accents.
For the shot where Hans Gruber falls from the top of the building in Die Hard (1988), he was actually dropped by a stuntman from a 20-foot high model onto an air bag. To get a surprised look, the stuntman dropped Alan on the count of two instead of three. Director John McTierman had to jump first to convince Rickman to do the jump scene.
Not long after he started to play Severus Snape in the first Harry Potter film (2001), J.K. Rowling told Rickman some character secrets about Snape that would be revealed in the last book. For over seven years, Rickman was one of the few people other than Rowling to know that Snape had been in love with Lily Evans (who became Harry's mother) when they were students at Hogwarts. Rowling shared the information with Rickman because “he needed to understand, I think, and does completely understand and where this bitterness towards the boy, who's living proof of Lily's preference for another man, came from.” When the directors of the films would ask him why he played a scene a certain way, Rickman would reply that he knew something they did not.
Attended the funeral of Natasha Richardson at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, New York on April 12^th 2009.
The first film Rickman ever saw was Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
Alan turned down the role of Alex Trevylan in Golden Eye (1995), because he was bored with playing villains. The role went to Sean Bean.
His marriage to Rima Horton (life partner) in 2012 was so secret that no one knew about it until he admitted it in 2015.
Rickman disliked science fiction and declined to participate in that genre of films, but agreed to appear in Galaxy Quest (1999) because he liked the script and thought it was very funny.