Richard Harris Movies and Career Information

Richard St. John Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer. He appeared on stage and in many films, and is perhaps best known for his roles as King Arthur in Camelot (1967), as Oliver Cromwell in Cromwell (1970) and as Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), his final film. He also played a British aristocrat and prisoner in A Man Called Horse (1970), Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator (2000) and a gunfighter in Clint Eastwood's Western film Unforgiven (1992). Harris had a top ten hit in Britain and the US with his 1968 recording of Jimmy Webb's song "MacArthur Park". Harris, the fifth of nine children, was born in Limerick City, County Limerick, Munster, Ireland, into a middle-class, staunchly Roman Catholic family. His parents were Ivan John Harris (b. 1896, son of Richard Harris, b. 1854, son of James Harris of St. Michael's, Limerick) and Mildred Josephine Harty Harris (b. 1898, daughter of James Harty, St. John's, Limerick, who owned a flour mill.) He was schooled by the Jesuits at Crescent College. A talented rugby