Alan Rickman, star of stage and Harry Potter dies at 69

LONDON — British actor Alan Rickman, whose career ranged from Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company to the Harry Potter films, has died. He was 69.

Rickman’s family said today (Jan 14) in a statement: "The actor and director Alan Rickman has died from cancer at the age of 69. He was surrounded by family and friends."
Younger fans might remember him as Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series of films. But the actor had already been staple in many movies as a character actor, ever since he starred in Die Hard in 1988, where he played Hans Gruber, a terrorist who takes an entire floor hostage and has to go up against Bruce Willis.

Other memorable roles included Jamie the cellist in Anthony Minghella’s supernatural romance Truly, Madly, Deeply;  Colonel Brandon in Sense And Sensibility, starring opposite Emma Thompson, with whom he'd work with again in 2003’s Love, Actually. He also starred in Michael Collins (1996), Galaxy Quest (2000), Lee Daniel's The Butler (2013) and most recently, with his other Sense And Sensibility co-star Kate Winslet, playing King Louis XIV in A Little Chaos (2015), which he also directed.
After leaving the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art(RADA) - which he attended from 1972 to 1974 and where he won several prizes, including the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize and the Bancroft Gold Medal -&the actor supported himself as a dresser for the likes of formidable actors such as Nigel Hawthorne and Ralph Richardson before finding work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and on television.

While Rickman has received a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a BAFTA (the British equivalent of the Oscar), he has never taken home an Academy Award.

For him, awards were not the reason he wanted to become an actor. "Actors are agents of change," he once said. "A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.”