Michael Byrne, the actor who had memorable roles in the Indiana Jones and Harry Potter franchises, has died, aged 82.
The English star’s other credits included Braveheart and British soap Coronation Street, in which he played the long-lost father of Gail Platt (Helen Worth). It’s been revealed that he died on 20 June.
A cause or location is yet to be announced, but The Guardian reports that his ex-wife, Carole Nimmons, cared for him towards the end of his life.
Among Byrne’s most famous performances were the evil Nazi Ernst Vogel, who gets killed in a tank accident in the third Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the soldier who tries to rape William Wallace’s wife in Mel Gibson’s 1995 historical epic Braveheart and the elderly version of wizard Grindelwald, who becomes a traitor to his old friend Dumbledore, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010).
Byrne launched his film career in 1963, with small roles in The Scarlet Blade and The Silent Playground, and the following year he joined the National Theatre, where he became a regular feature in many seasons.
His first major film role was Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset in 1972’s historical drama Henry VIII and His Six Wives. Later that decade he played several military figures: the NCO Feldwebel Karl Hofer in Michael Caine film The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Lieutenant-Colonel Giles Vandeleur in Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977), Major Schroeder in Force 10 from Navarone and Paul Vercors, a Communist Resistance leader in Secret Army (both 1978).
His other notable film credits included 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, in which he played the admiral in command of the HMS Bedford, a concentration camp survivor in Apt Pupil (1998), starring Sir Ian McKellen as a Nazi war criminal, and newspaper editor Horace Greeley in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002)
Byrne had an equally as illustrious career on the small screen, with roles in Smiley’s People, in which he played John le Carré character Peter Guillam, Sharpe, Hornblower, Midsomer Murders and Casualty.
From 2008 to 2010, he played Ted Page, the ex-lover of Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls) in ITV soap Coronation Street. His character was revealed to be the long-last father of Gail Platt (Helen Worth).
Byrne is survived by Nimmons, his daughters Tara and Bryony, and grandchildren, Tom, Chloe and Jasmine.
