A hell-raiser and shining star

Richard Harris, who seemed to revel in his reputation as a hell-raiser, was one of the most powerful and unpredictable stage and screen actors of the 20th century and beyond.

He starred in some of the classic films of his generation, including A Man Called Horse, The Guns of Navarone and Mutiny On The Bounty, but was prone to fill the columns of tabloid newspapers with his wild ways and hard-drinking exploits.

He was twice bankrupted, divorced, and underwent a reformation and acting resurrection in the early 1980s, when told he had only 18 months to live if he did not stop drinking.

He responded by buying the rights to the stage production of Camelot and toured the world with it for five years, becoming a multi-millionaire in the process.

Years later, in 2002, he fell ill with Hodgkin's disease and received chemotherapy sessions at the age of 72. At the time he was working on the third Harry Potter film, The Prisoner Of Ozkaban. He had appeared in previous Harry Potter productions.

Harris was born in Limerick on October 1, 1930. He was a noted rugby player in Ireland in his youth. Many years later he was to demonstrate this strong, physical, athletic presence in the film This Sporting Life.

He often played action-man roles and candidly admitted that some of his films, such as Tarzan The Ape Man, with Bo Derek, were among some of the worst films ever made.

But the depth of his acting powers was demonstrably proved in his award-winning role in Henry IV, when he moved from a blanket-wrapped timorous wreck of a man to a towering figure of immense strength, before degenerating into total lunacy.

Harris was the fifth of eight children born into a middle-class staunchly Roman Catholic family. His father, Ivan, was a flour mill owner and the young Richard had a happy childhood, acquiring a lifelong love for rugby and poetry.

As a rugby player, he was a formidable forward, representing his province Munster. He had high hopes of playing at international level, until he was struck down with tuberculosis at the age of 19.

For more than two years he was largely confined to bed and took that opportunity to read prodigiously to complete his education.

He raced through the likes of Joyce, Beckett, D H Lawrence, Dylan Thomas and Yeats and his imagination took off into flights of fancy.

"Really, catching TB was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me," he said. "It was then I decided to become an actor. If I hadn't started to read I would probably be selling insurance now."

In 1953, with £21 in his pocket, he came to London, knowing he had few options. But he was accepted by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and then went to work for Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, stepping on to the London stage for the first time in 1956.

The following year he married debutante Elizabeth Rees-Williams, the daughter of Lord Ogmore. Three sons were born during that stormy marriage which ultimately ended in divorce.

As Harris became more successful in London, eventually taking the lead in The Ginger Man at the Fortune Theatre, he gradually acquired his reputation for heavy drinking, late-night partying and the occasional brawl.

Harris made his first film, Alive and Kicking, in 1958 and swiftly made the transition to Hollywood. His success was assured with the release of This Sporting Life in 1962, for which he won four best-actor awards for his sympathetic and powerful portrayal of a fading rugby player.

Most of the profits from this success were used to prevent the closure of his father's flour mill.

It was with the role of King Arthur in the 1967 film Camelot that Harris will be best remembered.

It took many weeks for him to persuade the director, Joshua Logbaneven to give him a screen test for the role which had been created on stage by Richard Burton.

He turned the part into his own, with an heroic performance which combined a powerful earthy quality with a distinctive royal demeanour.

However, his hell-raising reputation did not help his career. There was a well-publicised row with Marlon Brando on the set of Mutiny on the Bounty, fights with Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston and innumerable bar-room brawls.

But all that came to a sudden end at 11.20pm on August 11, 1981, when he went to the Jockey Club, Washington, and ordered two bottles of Chateau Margaux 1947 at £325 each. He had just been given 18 months to live unless he quit drinking, and so he decided to say farewell to alcohol in style.

Then, after a string of seven films which he himself described as "terrible", he telephoned his agent to say he was finished with the cinema.

That was when he replaced Richard Burton, who had fallen ill, in the lead role in the stage production of Camelot which he then bought for 1 million. It was to make him a substantial fortune as he travelled the world with the production.

He then spent part of his time on Paradise island in the Bahamas, as a tax exile. But he returned to Britain from time to time where he lived at the Savoy Hotel in London. He was often to be seen in the adjacent Coal Hole bar in The Strand.

During his eventful career, he won a string of awards both for his stage and screen performances.