Richard Harris, actor, hell-raiser and one of Limerick's most famous sons, died in a London hospital last night, aged 72. He had been suffering from Hodgkin's disease.
The veteran actor fell ill in August after shooting the second film in the series Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and went to a hospital with a chest infection.
A statement last night on behalf of his sons Damian, Jared and Jamie, announced with great sadness the death of their "beloved father" at University College Hospital.
Harris revelled in his image as one of the most powerful and unpredictable stage and screen actors of the 20th century and beyond. He starred in some of the classic films of his generation, including A Man Called Horse, The Guns of Navarone and Mutiny on the Bounty, but was prone to fill the columns of tabloid newspapers with his wild ways and hard-drinking exploits.
He was twice bankrupted, divorced, and underwent a reformation and acting resurrection in the early 1980s, when told he had only 18 months to live if he did not stop drinking.
He responded by buying the rights to the stage production of Camelot and toured the world with it for five years, becoming a multi-millionaire in the process.
This year he fell ill with Hodgkin's disease and received chemotherapy. He had begun filming the third Harry Potter film, The Prisoner Of Azkaban.
Harris was born in Limerick on October 1st, 1930. He was a noted rugby player in his youth. Many years later he was to demonstrate this strong, physical, athletic presence in the film This Sporting Life.
He often played action-man roles and candidly admitted that some of his films, such as Tarzan The Ape Man, with Bo Derek, were among some of the worst films ever made. But the depth of his acting powers was demonstrably proved in his award-winning role in Henry IV.
Harris was the fifth of eight children born into a middle-class, staunchly Roman Catholic family. His father, Ivan, was a flour mill owner and the young Richard had a happy childhood, acquiring a lifelong love for rugby and poetry.
As a rugby player, he was a formidable forward for Munster. He had high hopes of playing at international level, until he was struck down with tuberculosis at 19. For more than two years he was largely confined to bed and took that opportunity to read prodigiously to complete his education.
He raced through the likes of Joyce, Beckett, D. H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas and Yeats. "Really, catching TB was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me," he said. "It was then I decided to become an actor. If I hadn't started to read I would probably be selling insurance now." he said.
In 1953, with £21 in his pocket, he went to London. He was accepted by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and then went to work for Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, stepping on to the London stage for the first time in 1956.
The following year he married Elizabeth Rees-Williams, the daughter of Lord Ogmore. Three sons were born during that stormy marriage, which ended in divorce.
He made his first film, Alive and Kicking, in 1958 and swiftly made the transition to Hollywood. But Harris will be best remembered for his King Arthur in the 1967 film Camelot.
His hell-raising reputation did not help his career. But all that came to a sudden end in August 1981, when he went to the Jockey Club, Washington, and ordered two bottles of Chateau Margaux 1947 at $325 each. He had just been given 18 months to live unless he quit drinking, and decided to say farewell to alcohol in style.