British actor Michael Byrne, familiar to fans of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Braveheart, and British TV series such as Coronation Street and Casualty, died June 20. He was 82.
UK’s The Guardian announced the news today. Neither a cause nor a specific place of death were disclosed.
Even in supporting roles, Byrne left indelible marks on his films. In Last Crusade he was the ruthless Nazi Ernst Vogel, whose end comes in a run-in with a tank. In Braveheart, he played Smythe, a soldier who attempts to rape the wife of William Wallace and gets an ax in his back for his crime. And in 2010’s Deathly Hallows he was the elderly dark wizard Grindelwald who, when threatened by Voldemort, rats out his old friend Dumbledore.
Byrne, born November 7, 1943, in London, launched his TV career in the early 1960s and ’70s with roles on such series as No Hiding Place, NET Playhouse, New Scotland Yard, and Thriller. His (uncredited) feature film debut was in 1963’s The Crimson Blade, and subsequent films would include Vampyres, The Omen (he played a monk), and Champions.
Prolific through the ensuing decades, Byrne appeared in a string of high-profile films throughout the 1990s, including the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and Bryan Singer’s controversial Apt Pupil.
Theater credits include roles in Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company at the Old Vic in the 1960s, and he would go on to perform in Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court, Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre, Butley at The Criterion, and also The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Romeo and Juliet, All My Sons and many others.
Byrne is survived by his ex-wife Carole Nimmons, whom The Guardian notes “cared for him towards the end of his life,” his daughters Tara and Bryony, and grandchildren Tom, Chloe and Jasmine.
