Albus Dumbledore - ©Theda Bara

Let’s talk about “Harry Potter”, more specifically about the actors who brought to life the character “Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore”, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In the story, there are three actors who played “Dumbledore”.

“Harry Potter” fans are already wands at the ready, as the two actors who played “Albus Dumbledore” in the “Harry Potter” film series have passed away. There is a third “Dumbledore” in the spin-off film series “Fantastic Beasts”, a younger version of the headmaster of the iconic magic school.

“Harry Potter” Filmography: 2001 “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”; 2002 “Harry Potter and the  Chamber of Secrets”; 2004 “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”; 2005 “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”; 2007 “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”; 2009 “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”; 2010 and 2011 “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 and 2”.

Richard Harris played “Albus Dumbledore” in the first two films. He passed away in 2002 due to pneumonia. The production of the third film then cast another Irish actor, Michael Gambon. The veteran debuted in 2004 and quickly won over audiences. It’s almost impossible for a “Harry Potter” fan not to imagine Gambon in the role of the headmaster of the iconic school of magic, but this almost happened, as Warner Bros., initial idea to replace Harris was Ian Murray McKellen (1939-), an excellent actor who became immortalized in the role of “Magneto” in the “X-Men” film franchise. However, he refused the role due to criticism leveled at Richard Harris years earlier, as McKellen recounted in an interview with the BBC.

Harris was an Irish actor, theatre director, singer, composer, and writer, acclaimed for winning the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for “This Sporting Life” in 1963 and the Golden Globe Award for “Camelot” in 1967, playing “King Arthur”. He received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, for “This Sporting Life” (1964), in the role of “Frank Machin”, and for “The Field” (1991), in the role of “Bull McCabe”, but never won the statuette.

Richard Harris does not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Richard St. John Harris was born on October 1, 1930, in Limerick, Ireland, and died on October 25, 2002, at University College Hospital in London, United Kingdom, at the age of 72.

Harris was married twice. His wives were Welsh socialite Elizabeth Rees-Williams Harris Aitken (1936-2022), from 1957 to 1969, and later American actress Ann Kathryn Turkel (1946-), to whom he was married from 1974 to 1982. From his first marriage, he had three British children: filmmaker and screenwriter Damian David Harris (1958-), actor and director Jared Harris (1961-) and actor Tudor St. John ‘Jamie’ Harris (1963-).

The second “Albus Dumbledore” in the “Harry Potter” franchise was Michael Gambon, who immortalized himself in the role from the third film until the end of the saga.

Michael John Gambon was an Irish actor who won four BAFTA Awards (the British equivalent of the Academy Awards) for Best Actor for his portrayals of “Philip Marlow” in “The Singing Detective” (1987), “Squire Hamley” in “Wives and Daughters” (2000), “John Harrison” in “Longitude” (2001), and “Raymond Symon” in “Perfect Strangers” (2002). However, he was never nominated for an Academy Award. In 1998, Gambon was knighted by the British government by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022). The appointment took place on July 17th. Despite being Irish, Michael Gambon retained British citizenship, making the knighthood effective, not honorary. Previously, in 1990, he had already been appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Michael Gambon also does not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Sir Michael John Gambon was born on October 19, 1940, in Cabra, Ireland, and died on September 28, 2023, in Witham, United Kingdom, at the age of 82.

Gambon was married to the mathematical scientist Anne Miller (1950-) from 1962 to 2002. * [Not to be confused with the American actress and dancer Anne Miller (1923–2004)]. The couple had one son, the architect and consultant to the British Glass and Ceramics Department, Fergus Gambon (1967-).

More recently, “Albus Dumbledore” was portrayed by Jude Law in “Fantastic Beasts” (2016/2018 and 2022). However, Law only participated in the last two films: “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” (2018), when he debuted as the still-young headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets” (2022), when he reprised the role.

Jude Law is a British actor who, in 2000, received the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999), which also earned him an Oscar nomination, an award he did not win.

David Jude Heyworth Law was born on December 29, 1972, in Lewisham, London, United Kingdom, and is currently 53 years old.

Jude Law received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6840 Hollywood Boulevard, in a ceremony held on December 12, 2024.

Jude Law has been officially married twice. His first marriage was to British actress, producer, and fashion designer Sadie Liza Frost (1965-), from 1997 to 2003. The couple has two sons: British actor Rafferty ‘Raff’ Jellicoe Frost Law (1996-) and Rudy Law (2002-). His second marriage, since 2019, is to British behavioral psychologist Phillipa Coan (1987-). The couple also has two sons, one born in (2020-) and the other in (2023-). The names of the sons with Phillipa remain private and out of the spotlight.

Jude Law has a total of seven children from different relationships. His other three children are: Ada Law (2015-), from his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Irish singer-songwriter Catherine Harding (1991-), also known as Cat Cavelli; another daughter is British model Iris Tallulah Elizabeth Law (2000-); and high school student and teenager Sophia Law (2009-), from his relationship with American model and actress Samantha Burke (1985-).

Rex Harrison - ©Theda Bara

In this post, I will highlight the British stage and film actor, Sir. Rex Harrison, who won the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film “My Fair Lady” (1962), playing the role of phonetics professor “Henry Higgins”, tasked with making a flower-selling beggar woman pass herself off as a lady of high society.

Rex Harrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) in July 1989. The official ceremony took place at Buckingham Palace on July 25, 1989, when he was 81 years old.

In addition to the Oscar, Rex Harrison won two Tony Awards: in 1953 for “The Four Poster” (1952), playing “John Edwards”, and in 1957 for “My Fair Lady” (on Broadway). He also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical in 1963 for “My Fair Lady”.

Sir. Rex Harrison has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6390 Hollywood Boulevard in the Television category and at 6904 Hollywood Boulevard in the Film category.

Reginald Carey Harrison was born on March 5, 1908, in the Huyton-Roby neighborhood of Lancashire, England, and died on June 2, 1990, in New York City, United States, at the age of 82, one year after receiving the title of Sir.

The actor was married six times. His first wife was French teacher Noel Marjorie Collette Thomas (1911-1991), with whom he lived from 1934 to 1942. The couple had one son, British actor Noel John Christopher Harrison (1934-2013); his second wife was German actress and writer Lilli Palmer (1914-1986), with whom he lived from 1943 to 1957; his third wife was English actress and singer Justine Kay Kendall McCarthy (1927-1959), with whom he lived from 1957 to 1959; His fourth wife was British actress Rachel Roberts (1920-1980), to whom he was married from 1962 to 1971. Rex Harrison’s fifth marriage occurred in the same year as his separation from his fourth wife. He met British actress and socialite Elizabeth Rees-Williams (1936-2022), a romance that lasted four years, from 1971 to 1975. Later, she married British actor Richard St. John Harris (1930-2002), famous for playing “Albus Dumbledore”, the headmaster of “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”, in the first two “Harry Potter” films: “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” and “Harry Potter and the  Chamber of Secrets”. He played the character until his death in 2002, when Sir. Michael John Gambon (1940-2023) took over the role from “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” onwards. Finally, Rex Harrison’s last marriage was to the Franco-British fashion designer Mercia Tinker (1938-), from 1978 to 1990, leaving her a widow.

Charlie Chaplin - ©Theda Bara

This name, which I will cover in this brief biography, is known to all of us, moviegoers or not. But it would be impossible to talk about films, whether silent or talkies, without mentioning the British actor, director, producer, comedian, businessman, writer, dancer, screenwriter and musician, being the biggest star of the silent film era, standing out for the use of mime in the slapstick comedy where he gave life to the character: The Tramp or The Little Tramp, known as: Charlotte in Europe.

Chaplin wrote, directed and staged 81 films, having received three Oscars, of which two were honorary, one of them being in 1929, for the film “The Circus”, from 1928, a sort of consolation prize for his work as a whole. Among his most notable films are such memorable masterpieces as: “A Dog’s Life” 1918; “The Boy”, 1921; “In Search of Gold”, 1925; “City Lights”, 1931; “Modern Times”, 1936; and “The Great Dictator”, from 1940. However, the actor was never properly recognized by the Academy, as he deserved.

What few know about Chaplin’s life is that he was also an excellent composer, having even won the Oscar for best soundtrack, with the composition: “Luzes da Ribalta” in the homonymous film of 1952; but which was only released in the United States in 1972, a fact that made it possible to compete for an Oscar in 1973.

However, what made Charlie Chaplin’s films reach the largest audience ever known was the mime, which was visually understood by all people in the world. Obviously, if he adopted a dialogue in the films, in the English language, his audience would decrease, since there were no subtitles at the time.

Sir. Charles Spencer Charlie Chaplin Jr., was born Charles Spencer Chaplin in Walworth, London, UK, on 16th April 1889 and died in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, on Christmas Day, 25th December 1977, aged 88 years.

Three facts about the life of Charlie Chaplin: the first is that he has two stars on the Walk of Fame, in the Film and TV categories, both at 6751 Hollywood Boulevard; the second curiosity is that he received the honor of “Sir”, treatment given to the Knights Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, in 1975, granted by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022); the third fact, this one more macabre, was that three months after his death, in March 1978, his body was stolen from the tomb and was only recovered and cremated two months later, in May 1978.

Charlie Spencer Chaplin was married four times, having controversial marriages and even with underage young people. His first wife was the American actress Mildred Harris (1901-1944), aged 17, a marriage that lasted less than two years, from 1918 to 1920; Lillita Louise MacMurray, better known as: Lita Gray (1908-1995), 16 years old, another American actress who had to marry with parental consent, was Chaplin's second wife, a marriage that also did not last long, 1924 to 1927; Paulette Goddard, stage name: Pauline Marion Goddard Levy (1910-1990), another American actress, famous for her films for Paramount Pictures in the 1940s, and for her marriages to rich and famous actors, one of them being Charlie Chaplin, was his third wife, from 1936 to 1942; and finally Oona O'Neill, also known as: Oona Chaplin or Lady Chaplin (1925-1991), British actress, daughter of the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature, Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) and the British Agnes Boulton (1893-1968), columnist for the American magazine “Pulp”, was the last wife of Charlie Chaplin from 1943 to 1977.

Chaplin had ten children. His first child with the young actress Mildred Harris: Norman Spencer Chaplin lived only 3 days (from July 7, 1919 to July 10, 1919). — The actor had two children with Lita Gray: British actor, comedian, director, composer, screenwriter, filmmaker, editor and musician Charlie Spencer Chaplin III (1925-1968). Chaplin III acted with his father in “Limelight” (1952) and in 1960 he wrote a book about his family life, entitled: “My Father, Charlie Chaplin”, and the American actor Sydney Earle Chaplin (1926-2009). — With Oona O'Neill, Chaplin had seven children: the Anglo-American actress Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (1944-) famous for working in the film: “Doctor Zhivago” (1965); the Anglo-American circus artist Victoria Agnes Chaplin-Thierrée (1951-); American actor Michael John Chaplin (1946-); American actress Josephine Hannah Chaplin (1949-2023); Swiss actress and producer Jane Chaplin (1957-); the Swiss real estate businesswoman, based in Paris, France, Annette Emily Chaplin (1959-); Swiss-born English composer and actor Christopher James Chaplin (1962-), is Chaplin's youngest son.