Robbie Coltrane, a seasoned humorist and actor of Scottish descent best known for his leading roles in the Harry Potter film series and the British police drama Cracker, has passed away, his agency WME confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. At 72 years old, he was.
In addition to commanding the screen in two James Bond films over an illustrious career on both sides of the Atlantic, the loud and unmistakably eccentric Scotsman began his career in comedy and theater.
The son of a doctor and a teacher, Coltrane was born Anthony Robert McMillan on March 30, 1950, in Glasgow, Scotland. Following his graduation from Glasgow Art School, he pursued further art education at Edinburgh’s Moray House College of Education.
But when Coltrane’s attempts to pursue a career as an artist failed, he turned to stand-up comedy in Edinburgh venues. And when he decided to pursue acting in London, he changed his last name in tribute to jazz great John Coltrane.
Flash Gordon, Blackadder, and Keep It in the Family are a few of Coltrane’s early television appearances. As he rose to prominence on British TV, his other comic credits included shows like A Kick Up the Eighties, The Comic Strip, and Alfresco.
Coltrane’s breakthrough performance came in Jimmy McGovern’s Cracker series, which ran for over 25 episodes between 1993 and 2006. He played Dr. Edward “Fitz” Fitzgerald, an anti-social criminal psychologist with a talent for solving murders.
Coltrane’s BAFTA-winning performance earned him the roles of Valentin Zukovsky in GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough, which led to appearances in two James Bond movies. As Rubeus Hagrid the Giant in the Harry Potter movies, beginning with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 2001, Coltrane has played other significant supporting parts.
Coltrane reprised his role as Hagrid in the fantasy short film Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure in 2019, one of his more recent performances. In 1993, while driving across America in a vintage 1951 Cadillac, Coltrane wrote an autobiography titled Coltrane in a Cadillac and appeared in the TV series of the same name.
