GIANT OF FILM
How Robbie Coltrane’s masterful legacy will live on as Hagrid and beyond, just as he intended
ACTOR Robbie Coltrane was the larger-than-life star who brought Harry Potter’s pal Hagrid to the big screen — and he was always proud of how the character’s legacy would long outlive him.
The Scot said in an interview last year that people will still be watching Harry Potter movies in 50 years’ time.
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And in prematurely prescient words, he said: “I’ll not be here, sadly — but Hagrid will.”
After he died aged 72 yesterday, Robbie was lauded even more enthusiastically by his devoted fans than ever before — as acting royalty, a British screen icon and a true national treasure.
It’s hard to disagree, and as Harry Potter author JK Rowling put it last night: “He was a complete one-off.”
Born Anthony Robert McMillan in an upmarket suburb of Glasgow, Coltrane was expensively educated at a smart boarding school where he described “legalised violence” as the preferred method of discipline.
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He later attended the Glasgow School of Art where he first studied painting before swapping to theatre — a move that would eventually take him to roles on the small and big screens, including a memorable appearance in the James Bond franchise.
It was while studying and performing stand-up that he adopted his pseudonym of Coltrane — in homage to the renowned jazz musician John Coltrane, who he considered a hero — and he joined a string of touring theatre companies.
His first screen credit was in Waterloo Sunset in 1979, a BBC Play for Today, which led to further minor appearances in films and TV shows, including Flash Gordon, Are You Being Served? and Britannia Hospital.
His statuesque presence marked him out as a uniquely recognisable personality — along with a natural comedic wit and timing honed during his stint as a stand-up.
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His gift for making audiences laugh landed him roles in sketch shows, but his acting ability outshone even his considerable wit and serious roles in more high-profile productions followed.
By the late 1980s he was a staple hire on high-end TV shows, including Bafta-winning drama series Tutti Frutti, about a washed-up Scottish rock ’n’ roll band.
He also found himself increasingly sought after for serious roles, including in Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio and as Falstaff in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V.
Spoof religious-themed comedies Nuns on the Run in 1990 and The Pope Must Die a year later propelled him to international acclaim and Hollywood.
In Britain, his role as criminal psychologist Dr Eddie “Fitz” Fitzgerald in Jimmy McGovern’s TV series Cracker, which first aired in 1993, made him a household name — and face.
Fitz was a unique and bold new character — a brilliant professional with a chaotic personal life. Robbie won three consecutiveBafta awards for his portrayal.
But the role imitated Robbie’s real life. He admitted to being a heavy drinker and remained an argumentative and at times aggressive figure who once threatened to beat up TV presenter and Sun columnist Piers Morgan at a meeting in a London restaurant.
As he once put it himself: “Booze is my undoing. I can drink a gallon of beer and not feel the least bit drunk.”
Despite that, his profile continued to soar with roles as dodgy KGB agent Valentin Zukovsky in James Bond films GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough.
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But despite growing success and roles in high end blockbusters, it was his caring as Hogwarts’ school caretaker Rubeus Hagrid in the film adaptation of Harry Potter for which he is likely to be best remembered.
The first in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was released in 2001, and gained Robbie a new audience of younger fans.
He often struggled with the attention it brought him.
He said: “Kids run up to you and to them you’re Hagrid. It’s a big responsibility.”
But on HBO’s Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return To Hogwarts, he spoke of his pride at the role.
He said: “The legacy of the movies is that my children’s generation will show it to their children, so you could be watching it in 50 years’ time easy.”
His ten years as Hagrid helped re-energise his career, particularly on British TV.
In 2009, he played Det Insp Douglas Hain in David Pirie’s Murderland.
And his performance as a TV star accused of sexual abuse in the 2016 Channel 4 show National Treasure was highly acclaimed.
In his personal life, he married the sculptor Rhona Gemmell in 1999 after starting a relationship more than ten years earlier.
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They separated in 2003, after having a son and daughter together.
Coltrane was made an OBE in the 2006 New Year’s honours list for his services to drama and he was awarded the Bafta Scotland Award for outstanding contribution to film in 2011.
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TRIBUTES TO AN ACTING GREAT
On set, his reputation was as a vibrant and talented colleague.
Broadcaster and close friend Rev Richard Coles said: “We shared a dressing room once and he had the biggest pants I have ever seen, which he wore with tremendous flair. We were friends from then on.”
But some said he could be occasionally cantankerous and fiery if pushed.
As one industry veteran put it: “He could be outspoken — even grumpy and argumentative on occasions — but somehow because he was so utterly brilliant you were just pleased to have his input.
“In a funny way, there was no greater compliment than being shouted at by Robbie — he was almost always right anyway.
“But he was also just so funny, so passionate and so impossibly talented it felt like a privilege just to be around him, whatever his mood.”
His sometimes combative persona was never more evident than when interviewed by the media — a by-product of his success that he never truly embraced.
Questions about his sizeable stature were met with angry and scathing responses — as proved in one interview when asked which of Laurel and Hardy he would play in a forthcoming biopic.
The interviewing journalist was promptly and ruthlessly despatched in a manoeuvre typical of his dismissive style.
Similarly, an interview in which he revealed he had shed four and a half stone after a diabetes diagnosis was cut short when he was asked a follow-up question about how he had achieved it.
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He was, as one reporter who met him reveals, “a formidable personality to encounter”.
But he was, also, an extraordinary talent.
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