
Acting
Richard Harris
Born 1930-10-01 · Limerick City, Munster, Ireland
Richard St John Francis Harris (October 1, 1930 – October 25, 2002) was an Irish actor and singer. He appeared on stage and in many films, notably as Corrado Zeller in Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert, Frank Machin in This Sporting Life, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and as King Arthur in the 1967 film Camelot, as well as the 1981 revival of the stage musical. He played an English aristocrat captured by the Sioux in A Man Called Horse (1970), Oliver Cromwell in Cromwell (1970), an embattled Irish farmer in Jim Sheridan's The Field (which earned him a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor), English Bob in Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992), Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator (2000), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) as Abbé Faria, and Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the latter of which was his final film role. Harris had a number-one singing hit in Australia, Jamaica and Canada, and a top-ten hit in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States with his 1968 recording of Jimmy Webb's song "MacArthur Park". In 2020, he was listed at number 3 on The Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Acting credits
7.9Harry Potter has lived under the stairs at his aunt and uncle's house his whole life. But on his 11th birthday, he learns he's a powerful wizard—with a place waiting for him at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As he learns to harness his newfound powers with the help of the school's kindly headmaster, Harry uncovers the truth about his parents' deaths—and about the villain who's to blame.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
2001
7.7Cars fly, trees fight back, and a mysterious house-elf comes to warn Harry Potter at the start of his second year at Hogwarts. Adventure and danger await when bloody writing on a wall announces: The Chamber Of Secrets Has Been Opened. To save Hogwarts will require all of Harry, Ron and Hermione's magical abilities and courage.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002
8.2After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of Rome's most capable generals who Marcus preferred. Eventually, Maximus is forced to become a gladiator and battle to the death against other men for the amusement of paying audiences.
Gladiator
2000
7.7Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.
The Count of Monte Cristo
2002
7.9William Munny is a retired, once-ruthless killer turned gentle widower and hog farmer. To help support his two motherless children, he accepts one last bounty-hunter mission to find the men who brutalized a prostitute. Joined by his former partner and a cocky greenhorn, he takes on a corrupt sheriff.
Unforgiven
1992
6.7When CIA Analyst Jack Ryan interferes with an IRA assassination, a renegade faction targets Jack and his family as revenge.
Patriot Games
1992
7.3A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
The Guns of Navarone
1961
7.3Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden until their indulgence in the forbidden fruit sees them driven out; Cain murdering his brother Abel; Noah building an ark to preserve the animals of the world from the coming flood; and Abraham making a covenant with God.
The Bible: In the Beginning...
1966
6.9Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.
The Heroes of Telemark
1965
7.1The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.
Mutiny on the Bounty
1962
4.3When a beautiful mob hitwoman learns she only has six months to live, she decides to rob her employers, and go out in style, but the syndicate's head man won't rest until he gets his two million dollars back.
Savage Hearts
1995
6.8A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.
The Wild Geese
1978
5.9Based on Victor Hugo's famed novel, the story of Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer of Notre Dame, and his unrequited love for the gypsy girl, Esmeralda.
The Hunchback
1997
6.2Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease, and nobody will let them off the train.
The Cassandra Crossing
1976
6.7During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.
Major Dundee
1965
6.3Robin Hood, aging none too gracefully, returns exhausted from the Crusades to woo and win Maid Marian one last time.
Robin and Marian
1976
6.2After witnessing the killing of his mate and offspring at the hands of a reckless Irish captain, a vengeful killer whale rampages through the fisherman's Newfoundland harbor. Under pressure from the villagers, the captain, a female marine biologist, and an Indigenous tribalist venture after the great beast, who will meet them on its own turf.
Orca
1977
7.3Based upon Paul Gallico's delicate novel, Patrick Garland's Golden Globe winning The Snow Goose is a stark and hauntingly beautiful drama set amongst the striking scenery of the Essex salt marshes during the early years of WWII. A bearded Richard Harris leads the modest cast with his sensitive portrayal of tormented soul Philip Rhayader, a lonely misshapen man shunned by society but with a great love of life; Harris isnt overly bitter of his treatment and expresses his compassion through his paintings and love of the waterfowl that surround him. Harris is ably supported by the waiflike Jenny Agutter as Frith, who radiates the requisite amount of youthful innocence and naivety, and won a best supporting actress Emmy Award for her performance.
The Snow Goose
1971
6.4Smilla Jaspersen attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla uncovers a trail of clues leading towards a secretive corporation that has made several mysterious expeditions to Greenland.
Smilla's Sense of Snow
1997
6.3A terrorist demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he has planted aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. Inspired by real events.
Juggernaut
1974
4.1The Tarzan story from Jane's point of view. Jane Parker visits her father in Africa where she joins him on an expedition. A couple of brief encounters with Tarzan establish a (sexual) bond between her and Tarzan. When the expedition is captured by savages, Tarzan comes to the rescue.
Tarzan the Ape Man
1981
6.4In 1825, English peer Lord John Morgan is cast adrift in the American West. Captured by Sioux Indians, Morgan is at first targeted for quick extinction, but the tribesmen sense that he is worthy of survival. He eventually passes the many necessary tests that will permit him to become a member of the tribe.
A Man Called Horse
1970
6.3In the early 1800s, a group of fur trappers and Indian traders are returning with their goods to civilization and are making a desperate attempt to beat the oncoming winter. When guide Zachary Bass is injured in a bear attack, they decide he's a goner and leave him behind to die. When he recovers instead, he swears revenge on them and tracks them and their paranoiac expedition leader down.
Man in the Wilderness
1971
6.6Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, Cromwell is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.
Cromwell
1970
