Coltrane’s officer, Belinda Wright, said she died Friday at a hospital in Scotland, but did not provide additional details. She called him a “smart doctor” and a “brilliantly witty” in one of the many triyetes he was paid.
“Harry Potter” writer J. K. Rowling, who decades ago said Coltrane was her first choice to play Hagrid, tweeted Friday that he was “a talent, quite a talent. “
“I’m luckier to meet him, paint with him and laugh with him,” she wrote.
Born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, Scotland, Coltrane was in his early twenties when he began pursuing an acting career, renaming himself after jazz musician John Coltrane.
He has already had a notable screen career, with credits such as “Mona Lisa,” “Nuns on the Run” and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of “Henry V” when he made his way as an inveterate detective in “Cracker” in the 1990s. Television series for which he won Best Actor at the British Academy Television Awards 3 years in a row.
He continued to appear in all 8 “Harry Potter” films as a mentor to the young wizard and had a wide variety of other roles, adding a Russian crime boss in the James Bond thrillers “GoldenEye” and “The World Is Not Enough. “and Pip’s Guardian M. Jaggers in a 2012 adaptation of Dickens’ “Great Expectations. “More recently, he garnered rave reviews for betting on a beloved TV star who might harbor a dark secret in the 2016 miniseries “National Treasure. “
On Friday, his “Nuns on the Run” co-star Eric Idle tweeted that he was talking about Coltrane, “wondering where Array would be” when he learned of his death.
“Such a bright and brilliant man. A well-rounded actor, an extremely funny comedian, and an actor. He was also a very intelligent friend,” Idle wrote.
Wright said Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, ex-wife Rhona Gemmell and young Spencer and Alice.
(PENNSYLVANIA)