Michael Gambon, the acclaimed actor known for playing Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, continued to believe he was going to work in the mornings long after he had retired, according to a new authorised biography. Gambon died in September 2023 at the age of 84, having spent his final months in a care home.
Belief in work persisted despite retirement
The biography, written by Jasper Rees and released this week, includes a chapter titled 'I'm Off On A Job'. His family recall how he regularly thought he was heading off to work, even years after his last acting role. His final film, Cordelia, was released in 2019, although he had been diagnosed with dementia several years before his retirement, despite publicly denying it.
His son Fergus described accompanying his father to St Thomas' hospital, where a geriatrician asked him to draw a clock face. Gambon started the twelve o'clock mark at about two o'clock and ran out of numbers by the time he reached eight o'clock. A brain scan also showed "black bits" where parts of his brain were no longer working. After the appointment, Fergus told his father he had "got what you mum had," but believed Gambon had already known and was trying to hide it.
Gambon had to stop driving in 2017 after police found him driving the wrong way up a one-way street. By 2019, he spent most days watching television, eating and sleeping, but would "sometimes remember what he had been".
Help from Harry Potter co-stars
Dementia was already affecting his memory towards the end of the Harry Potter films, on which he worked from 2003 to 2010. By the fifth film, he struggled with long passages of speech. Imelda Staunton recalled: "He was struggling with his lines and that was a shock to me. I thought that's the man who played all these big parts, and it'll happen to all of us."
Daniel Radcliffe helped by sitting behind dialogue boards during their scenes together. "It became starkly apparent to him in the scenes they had alone together. When dialogue boards were deployed, they needed to be in Michael's eyeline. There was only one practical solution to this," Radcliffe said. "I would sit behind idiot boards for a lot of scenes and just hold them. He would be apologetic, because the board has to be in front of my face. I loved Michael, so I didn't give a s***. It was also an amazing lesson in that he's still so f***ing captivating."
Career and final days
Gambon's career spanned stage and screen, from Laurence Olivier's National Theatre to the BBC's The Singing Detective in 1986 and the Harry Potter films. He won three Olivier Awards for his stage roles. Colleagues remembered him warmly: Dame Helen Mirren called him "a great, great man," Judi Dench said he "was sublime" to work with, and Jeremy Clarkson described him as "perfection".
In his final years, Gambon's wife Anne recalled how he would say "It's time I got dressed, the car's coming in half an hour," and she would reassure him it wasn't that day. After a fall broke his hip, he lost his mobility and one night insisted "I've got to work," requiring three hours of reassurance from his son that there was "no work tomorrow". He moved to a care home in early 2023 and died in September with his wife Anne and son Fergus by his side.
The biography, 'Michael Gambon: The Authorised Biography' by Jasper Rees, is released on October 29, published by Century.
