Richard Harris Biography

Fast Facts

• Was a skilled rugby player with aspirations to play professionally, but contracting tuberculosis as a teen ended his pursuit; was also a champion racquetball player
• Made feature-film debut in the 1959 comedy Alive and Kicking
• Came to fame and received his first Oscar nomination for 1963's This Sporting Life, playing a rugby player
• Definitive role was as King Arthur in the 1967 film version of Camelot, a part he eventually played on Broadway in 1981 and for five years on the road
• Recorded several albums and in 1968 had a Top 10 hit in Britain and the U
• S
• with "MacArthur Park
• " Published a collection of poems in 1973 titled I, in the Membership of My Days
• Was knighted by Denmark in 1985
• In 1987 began as a visiting professor at the University of Scranton
• Took the role of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone after his granddaughter threatened to never speak to him again if he refused the part
• A life-size statue of him as a teen playing racquetball was erected in 2006 in Kilkee, Ireland; a statue of him as King Arthur was erected in his hometown of Limerick, Ireland, in 2007