The baby-faced comedian and character actor Robbie Coltrane has passed away at the age of 72. Among his many roles were the kind-hearted half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” films and a psychologist who solves crimes on the TV show “Cracker.”
According to his agent Belinda Wright, Coltrane passed away on Friday in a hospital in his native Scotland, but she did not immediately provide any other information. She praised him in a number of ways, calling him “forensically clever” and “brilliantly witty” in just one of many tributes offered to him.
Coltrane changed his name to John Coltrane in honour of jazz artist John Coltrane while he was in his early 20s. Coltrane was born as Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, Scotland.
When he made his breakthrough as a tough detective in “Cracker,” the 1990s TV series for which he won best actor at the British Academy Television Awards three times, he already had a distinguished screen career, with credits that included “Mona Lisa,” “Nuns on the Run,” and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of “Henry V.”
J.K. Rowling, who had previously stated Coltrane was her top pick to play Hagrid in “Harry Potter,” tweeted on 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 on Friday, 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.
According to Wright, Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his ex-wife Rhona Gemmell and his children Spencer and Alice.