Richard Griffiths

Richard Thomas Griffiths (July 31, 1947 - March 28, 2013) was an English actor of film, television, and stage. For his performance in the stage play The History Boys, Griffiths won a Tony Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award. For the 2006 film adaptation, Griffiths was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He played Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films (2001-2010) and Great Uncle Matthew Brown "Gum" in the BBC film Ballet Shoes (2007). He also portrayed Uncle Monty in Withnail and I (1987), and Henry Crabbe in Pie in the Sky (1994-1997). Earlier in his career, he had supporting roles in such critically acclaimed films as Chariots of Fire (1981), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Gandhi (1982), and The Naked Gun 2+1⁄2: The Smell of Fear (1991). In his later career he appeared in Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and in Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011).