In Memoriam: Michael Gambon

Michael Gambon, born into a working-class family in Cabra, a suburb of Dublin, did not seem destined for an acting career. He left school at 15 to become an apprentice with an engineering company. His first contact with the theater was when his father, a communist sympathizer, told him to help with set-building at the left-wing, working-class Unity Theater of Dublin. As Gambon told The Irish Times, he ended up with a walk-on role, drinking tea onstage and feeling very comfortable there.

This is nice. This is easy, acting. Just standing there with a spear all day. Anyone can do that.

A year or so after completing his apprenticeship, the family moved to London, where rebuilding London was in full spate, but Gambon had been bitten by the theater bug. At the age of 24, he wrote to Micheál Mac Liammóir, the Irish theatre impresario who ran Dublin's Gate Theatre, pitching an impressive (and completely imaginary!) repertoire of acting jobs. Mac Liammóir hired him, and he made his official debut in a minor role in William Shakespeare's Othello.