london: Richard Griffiths, a versatile British actor who won a Tony Award for “The History Boys” and played the boy wizard’s unsympathetic Uncle Vernon Dursley in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 65.
Agent Simon Beresford announced on Friday that Griffiths died a day earlier of complications following heart surgery at University Hospital in Coventry, central England.
He paid tribute to Griffiths as “a remarkable man and one of our greatest and best-loved actors.”
Griffiths appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows, but will be most widely remembered as a pair of contrasting uncles — flamboyant Uncle Monty in 1980s cult classic “Withnail and I” and the hero’s grudging Muggle guardian in the “Harry Potter” series.
Griffiths once said he liked playing Uncle Vernon “because that gives me a licence to be horrible to kids.” But “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe paid tribute to the actor, saying “I was proud to say I knew him.” A large man and a huge stage presence, Griffiths was one of Britain’s leading theater actors, creating roles including the charismatic teacher Hector at the emotional heart of Alan Bennett’s school drama “The History Boys” — a part he took to Broadway, winning a Tony, and repeated for the film adaptation.