Posted on 03/07/2021 8:41:22 AM PST by Rummyfan
During our reprise of some favorite Kathy classics of mine in recent weeks, there passed the fifth anniversary of Alan Rickman's death and what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. I regret that he did not live to be an "old" actor, because he would have been very good at it.
There are those who assume his languid tones were an affectation, but they were in fact his workaround for a childhood speech impediment arising from an immobility in his jaw. Life handed him elocutionary lemons, and he made very lucrative lemonade. I have seen women swoon at the sound of his voice, and I still find it odd that he never translated that into a solid romantic leading-man career.
It is more or less exactly thirty-five years ago that I first saw Rickman in the role that made his name - as the Vicomte de Valmont in Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican Pit. Theatre critics are overly fond of the phrase "a commanding performance", but I've rarely seen anything as commanding as Alan Rickman on stage that night: he was a very palpable flesh-and-blood embodiment of the title. From about twenty minutes after his entrance, you could feel all around you that approximately ninety per cent of the female audience and thirty per cent of the male were just longing to be taken by him. I made the mistake of inviting a young lady along, and at supper afterwards she did her best not to make it too obvious that she found me wanting by comparison.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
He’s one of those actors that had charisma. A presence that can’t be manufacutured.
As much as I like Mark, he's WRONG here.
This here is his FIRST famous role!
Oh God that was funny
We watched just two nights ago
Supposedly Galaxy Quest Two in work, but nothing will beat the original
He probably was a lefty because he was in Tim Robbins anti-conservative movie “Bob Roberts”, about a “conservative” politician who fakes his own shooting to get sympathy.
Rickman was fantastic in Quigley.
He was an excellent actor who died far too young.
Quigley Down Under (8/11) Movie CLIP - Marston Challenges Quigley (1990) HD
LOVE this movie. Met the screenwriter a few years ago. Man did he have trouble getting this made!
Absolutely fantastic as Gruber.
Rickman always had that condescension down! Esp. in “Galaxy Quest.”
This was one of the few roles I did not like him in. Just didn’t see him as a gunslinger.
Great homage to a really gifted actor. Miss him.
Of course he was. Most famous actors are. But he was good at what he did and (at least on this side of the Atlantic) not known for his political views.
He always seemed to be sneering a little, though (or more than a little). Either he couldn't help it or he just got picked for roles like that.
I actually thought he was excellent in the role. His diction helped sell him as the self-proclaimed king of his domain. It’s too bad that it didn’t fit your view of Rickman because he was good in it but I do know what you mean.
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