Harry Potter’s Hagrid, actor Robbie Coltrane, dies at 72
Robbie Coltrane, the baby-faced comedian and character actor whose hundreds of roles included a crime-solving psychologist on the TV series “Cracker” and the gentle half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 72.
Coltrane’s agent Belinda Wright said he died Friday at a hospital in his native Scotland, and but did not immediately other details. She called him “forensically intelligent” and “brilliantly witty” in just one of many tributes made to him.
“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who decades ago had said Coltrane was her first choice to play Hagrid, tweeted Friday that he was “an incredible talent, a complete one off.” “I was beyond fortunate to know him, work with him and laugh my head off with him,” she wrote.
His “Nuns on the Run” co-star Eric Idle tweeted that he had been talking about Coltrane, “wondering where he was,” when he learned of his death. “Such a bright and brilliant man. A consummate actor, an extraordinarily funny comedian and an amazing actor. He was also a very good friend,” Idle wrote.
Wright said Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his ex-wife Rhona Gemmell and his children Spencer and Alice.
