Paul Ritter, “Harry Potter” And “Chernobyl” Star, Dies Of Brain Tumour At 54
English actor Paul Ritter has died of a brain tumour. He was 54-years-old.
Ritter, who is best known for long-running Channel4 comedy series Friday Night Dinner, died on Monday night with his family by his side, his agent confirmed.
“It is with great sadness we can confirm that Paul Ritter passed away last night. He died peacefully at home with his wife Polly and sons Frank and Noah by his side,” Ritter’s agent said in a statement.
“He was 54 and had been suffering from a brain tumour. Paul was an exceptionally talented actor playing an enormous variety of roles on stage and screen with extraordinary skill. He was fiercely intelligent, kind and very funny. We will miss him greatly.”
In Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner, Ritter played the quietly-suffering, often shirtless, hard-of-hearing husband and dad Martin Goodman.
His widely-acclaimed role as Anatoly Dyatlov, the deputy chief engineer at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, led to the five-part miniseries becoming the best-rated show ever on global movie and TV website IMDb – and hailed as “the greatest drama of all time”.
In Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, he played wizard Eldred Worple.
Other notable roles were as Guy Haines in James Bond film Quantum Of Solace, in period drama Belgravia, as Billy Cartwright in Vera and Sir John Seymour in Wolf Hall.
Trying to find a way to talk about Paul Ritter and struggling. My friend since we were students together. So much talent and it shone from him even as a teenager. I was so lucky to know him and lucky too to work with him many times over the years. Wonderful man. RIP.
— Stephen Mangan (@StephenMangan) April 6, 2021
What awful news about Paul Ritter. Such a fantastic, magnetic actor in Chernobyl, No Offence, The Hollow Crown and much more. And of course, Martin Goodman is one of the most brilliant and memorable comedy characters of the past several decades. pic.twitter.com/YmlB93PSlD
— Morgan Jeffery (@morganjeffery) April 6, 2021
Paul Ritter. What an actor. What a presence. So shocked and saddened by this awful news. RIP.
— Mark Gatiss 💙 (@Markgatiss) April 6, 2021
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