THE FRIENDLY GIANT (REMEMBERING ROBBIE COLTRANE)
Among the avalanche of tributes to Robbie Coltrane after the announcement of his death, one leapt out.
The English actor Daniel Mays perfectly captured on Twitter the Scotsman's incredible skill as a big and small screen actor - referring to his best TV role in Jimmy McGovern's 'Cracker'.
"Incredibly sad to hear about the great Robbie Coltrane," Mays responded.
"Knock-out in so many performances, 'Harry Potter', 'National Treasure', but it was Fitz in TV classic 'Cracker: that stands out for me.
"No one else could’ve played that role the way he did. Lead acting at it’s finest."
©ITVColtrane charmed and impressed audiences in a screen career spanning five decades.
Born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen in South Lanarkshire in 1950, his father was a GP who also served as a forensic surgeon for the police and his mum was a piano teacher.
He was raised with two sisters - one older and one younger and was educated at Belmont House School in Newton Mearns and Glenalmond College in Perthshire.
A talented debater, he played rugby on school and won prizes for art but later admitted he was deeply unhappy at Glenalmond.
His next move was studying at the Glasgow School of Art where he was initially ridiculed for having a posh Scottish accent and then attended the Moray House School of Education and Art which was part of Edinburgh University.
©Channel 4It was in his twenties when Robbie started to take an interest in acting and consider it for a career.
Changing his surname to Coltrane after the jazz legend John Coltrane, he quickly made an impact in theatre and the small screen - appearing in the acclaimed Traverse Theatre production of John Byrne's 'Slab Boys' in Edinburgh and on BBC1's 'Play for Today' in Barrie Keeffe's 'Waterloo Sunset' where he was directed by Richard Eyre.
Showing a natural flair for comedy, there were appearances in 1981 in sitcoms like ITV's 'Metal Mickey' and 'Keep It In The Family'.
However his talent started to get noticed as alternative comedy started to boom in the Margaret Thatcher era.
He got his first taste of sketch comedy as a performer on BBC Scotland's 'Sin on Saturday' with Bernard Falk in 1982 which ran for only three episodes.
©BBCThat year, Coltrane landed an eye catching role in 'The Young Ones' with Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer as a doctor in the 'University Challenge' episode with Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Griff Rhys Jones.
That led to regular roles on Channel 4's 'The Comic Strip Presents' with alternative comedians like Edmondson, Mayall, Planer, French and Saunders, Peter Richardson and Ronald Allen from their spoof of Enid Blyton books in 'Five Go To Dorset' to the spaghetti western parody 'A Fistful of Travellers Cheques' to brilliant episodes imagining Hollywood movies of the miners strike and the GLC in which he played Charles Bronson as Ken Livingstone.
While building a reputation on the small screen as a natural comic performer, Coltrane also dabbled in film - appearing briefly in Mike Hodges' camp 1980 cult sci-fi movie 'Flash Gordon' with Sam J Jones, Ornella Multi and Max Von Sydow.
There were also film roles as a limousine driver in Bertrand Tavernier's 1980 sci-fi tale 'Death Watch' with Romy Schneider, Max Von Sydow and Harvey Keitel, as a striking worker in Lindsay Anderson's 1982 black comedy 'Britannia Hospital' with Leonard Rossiter, Joan Plowright and Mark Hamill and Peter Yates' swashbuckling 1983 sci-fi fantasy 'Krull' with Lysette Anthony and Freddie Jones in which he and Liam Neeson played bandits.
Back on the small screen, Coltrane continued to make his mark as a comedy performer on sketch shows like ITV's 'Alfresco' that featured Ben Elton, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Siobhan Redmond which ran for two series.
©BBCHe was also a cast member on BBC Scotland's 'A Kick Up The Eighties' with Tracey Ullman, Richard Stilgoe, Miriam Margoyles, Rik Mayall and Ron Bain which also lasted two series.
Another shortlived BBC2 sketch show 'Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee' saw him join John Sessions, Ron Bain and Louise Gold for one series and featured a memorable turn by him as a diehard anti-Catholic obsessed Scottish Orangeman called Mason Boyne.
With alternative comedy performers like Ben Elton and Harry Enfield getting their own vehicle on Channel 4's 'Saturday Live,' Coltrane was recruited for the pilot for a spoof of 'On The Waterfront' and a parody of 'The Third Man'.
But while he was primarily famous in the 1980s for his gift for comedy, Coltrane took on supporting roles that stretched him a bit more as an actor.
He played a journalist colleague of Gabriel Byrne's Nick Mullen in David Drury's gripping 1985 Fleet Street thriller 'Defence of the Realm' with Greta Scaachi, Ian Bannen, Denholm Elliott, Bill Paterson and Fulton Mackay.
©HandMade FilmsIn 1986, he memorably played a mechanic who is the close friend of Bob Hoskins' struggling ex-con George in Neil Jordan's acclaimed dark prostitution tale 'Mona Lisa' with Cathy Tyson, Kate Hardie, Clarke Peters, Sammi Davis and Michael Caine.
Derek Jarman also directed him that year in the daring historical drama 'Caravaggio' with Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean in which he played the Italian Cardinal Scipione Borghesi.
But while he stretched himself in these roles, Coltrane also appeared in big screen comedies too - getting his first taste of Hollywood in a minor role as a man in a bathroom in Amy Heckerling's 'National Lampoon's European Vacation' in 1985 with Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and Eric Idle.
Coltrane played a cop in the Comic Strip movie 'The Supergrass' appearing onscreen alongside writer-director Peter Richardson, Keith Allen, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson and Alexei Sayle
In Peter Richardson's poorly received 1987 Comic Strip follow-up 'Eat the Rich,' he appeared alongside the likes of Miranda Richardson, Rik Mayall, Paul McCartney, Angie Bowie, Koo Stark, Shane MacGowan, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Lemmy, Jools Holland and Adrian Edmondson in a muddled satirical tale about anarchists working in a luxury restaurant called Bastards.
©BBC1987 saw Coltrane turn in a fantastic performance as the acerbic 18th Century writer and critic Samuel Johnson on BBC1's 'Blackadder The Third' with Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson and Hugh Laurie.
However it was his performance in 1987 as the lead singer of a Glaswegian rock n roll band in John Byrne's BBC1 comedy drama 'Tutti Frutti' which was to cement his reputation as a versatile actor.
Starring alongside Emma Thompson, Richard Wilson and Maurice Roeves, Coltrane shone as Danny McGlone who is thrust into the role of lead singer when the previous lead singer, his brother dies in a car crash and the show would go onto to capture six BAFTAs - although he didn't win despite being nominated for Best Actor.
Coltrane continued to push himself as an actor - switching between dramatic and comedy roles.
He played a gay transvestite nightclub owner by the name of Anabelle in Philip Saville's ambitious but not entirely successful thriller 'The Fruit Machine' with Tony Forsyth, Emile Charles and Bruce Payne.
©BBC & Renaissance FilmsKenneth Branagh directed him in 1989 as Falstaff in his Academy Award Best Picture nominated 'Henry V'.
But there were also comedic roles that year in Carl Reiner's musical 'Bert Rugby, You're A Fool' with Robert Lindsay and Anne Bancroft, in Joe Pykta's 'Let It Ride' with Richard Dreyfus and Teri Garr and as a greedy developer in Gavin Millar's film of Roald Dahl's 'Danny Champion of the World' with Sam Irons, Jeremy Irons, Cyril Cusack and Michael Horden.
There was also a minor role in Steven Lisberger's sci-fi flop 'Slipstream' with Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley and F Murray Abraham.
He scored a minor box office hit on both sides of the Atlantic with Eric Idle in Jonathan Lynn's 1990 crime caper 'Nuns on the Run' and in Canada in Yves Simoneau's Genie Award nominated Italian restaurant comedy 'Petfectly Normal'.
In 1991, Coltrane received decent reviews in Peter Richardson poorly received comedy 'The Pope Must Die' in which he played a low ranking priest unexpectedly elected Pontiff in a movie that also starred Adrian Edmonson, Alex Rocco, Beverly D'Angelo and Paul Bartel.
©Palace Pictures & Film4In Amos Poe's well received US indie crime drama 'Triple Five Bogey On A Par Five Hole,' he joined a cast that included Philip Seymour Hoffman in his debut role.
That year also saw him earn more praise, starring opposite Lenny Henry as an unorthodox drug counsellor in Robert Young's BBC 'Screen One' drama 'Alive and Kicking' with Jane Horrocks.
There was a performance as a Humphrey Bogart obsessed mental patient in BBC Scotland's one-off comedy 'The Bogie Man' with Aine O'Connor, Craig Ferguson and Midge Ure.
Coltrane had a supporting role in Eric Till's little seen 1992 Canadian comedy 'Oh What A Night!' with Corey Haim, Barbara Williams and Genevieve Bujold.
In 1993 John Byrne wrote and directed him and John Sessions in 'Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Isles' which saw him reprise the role of Samuel Johnson for BBC2's 'Screenplay' series.
©ITVOn the big screen, he scored another minor box office success in the US as a conman known as The Duke in Stephen Somers' Disney feature 'The Adventure of Huck Finn' with Elijah Wood, Courtney B Vance and Jason Robards.
Coltrane's next role, however, would turn out to be arguably his best on TV as the clever, yet deeply flawed crime solving psychologist Fitz in Jimmy McGovern's hit ITV crime series 'Cracker'.
McGovern had originally wanted Robert Lindsay in the role but when the part landed on Coltrane's lap, he really embraced it.
Acting alongside a who's who of up and coming or established British and Irish acting talent like Barbara Flynn, Adrian Dunbar, Geraldine Somerville, Christopher Eccleston, Lorcan Cranitch, Robert Carlyle, Susan Lynch, John Simm, Liam Cunningham, Jim Carter and Ricky Tomlinson, he always shone and scooped three Best Actor BAFTAs in a row for his portrayal of the heavy drinking, unfaithful, gambling addict in the first three series.
©MGM & United International PicturesAfter just three series, he would reprise the role twice in one off specials in 1996 and 2006 - although neither quite reached the heights of the series.
In 1995, there was an amusing performance as a former KGB operative turned Russian gangster in Martin Campbell's 007 movie 'Goldeneye' with Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Jansen, Joe Don Baker, Tcheky Karyo, Alan Cumming and Judi Dench.
He would reprise the role in 1999 in Michael Apted's Bond feature 'The World Is Not Enough' with Robert Carlyle, Sophie Marceau and Denise Richards.
Riding high on the back of his acclaimed performance as Fitz, he fronted his own ITV documentary 'Coltrane's Planes and Automobiles'.
1998 saw him appear in a supporting role in a hit Hollywood romcom 'Message In A Bottle' which started Kevin Costner, Robin Wright, Illeana Douglas and Paul Newman which drew negative reviews from the critics.
©Hallmark FilmsThere was an appearance as Tweedledum to George Wendt's Tweedledee in Nick Willing's star studded 1999 adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' with Tina Majorino, Miranda Richardson, Martin Short, Simon Russell Beale, Whoopi Goldberg, Ken Dodd, Christopher Lloyd, Gene Wilder, Ben Kingsley, Liz Smith, Pete Postlethwaite and Peter Ustinov.
Broadcast on NBC in the US and Channel 4 in the UK, the TV film combined Jim Henson puppetry and live action and earned enthusiastic reviews.
That year he married Rhona Gemmell who had been his partner for years and mother of his two children, Spencer and Alice who were born in 1992 and 1998.
However the marriage ended four years later and they eventually divorced.
David Caffrey directed him and Dan Aykroyd in a 2001 Irish Canadian horse racing comedy 'On the Nose' with Brenda Blethyn, Jim Norton and Laurence Kinlan.
©20th Century FoxThere was a more prominent role that year as a police sergeant in the Hughes Brothers' Jack the Ripper movie 'From Hell' with Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Ian Richardson and Jason Flemyng which made a profit in cinemas despite iffy reviews.
However 2001 would also see his first appearance as Hagrid, the big hearted half giant gamekeeper of Hogwarts in Chris Columbus's hugely successful movie of JK Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'.
Coltrane really bonded with its child stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint as well as established actors in the cast like Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman.
Hagrid was a beloved character and he reprised the role to great success throughout the eight film series between 2001 and 2011.
In 2004, the Scottish actor popped up in Steven Soderbergh's 'Ocean's Eleven' sequel 'Ocean's Twelve', playing an informant who tips off George Clooney's Danny Ocean about the location of a stock certificate in Amsterdam.
The film with Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Eliott Gould, Andy Garcia, Eddie Izzard and Don Cheadle was a hit despite mediocre reviews.
In Sharon Bridgeman's 2004 action horror short 'Van Helsing: The London Assignment,' he joined a voice cast that included Hugh Jackman, Tress McNeille and Tara Strong in what was an animated prequel to Stephen Somers' feature 'Van Helsing,' playing Mr Hyde/Jack the Ripper and also voiced the role on the main film with Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh and Alun Armstrong which did very well at the box office despite taking a critical pounding.
On the small screen that year, Coltrane lent his voice to the BBC and A&E TV comedy drama film 'Pride' about lion cubs with Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Sean Bean, Rupert Graves, Martin Freeman, Jim Broadbent and John Hurt.
There was also an amusing appearance as one of Daphne Moon's brothers in NBC's superb sitcom 'Frasier' with Anthony LaPaglia and Richard E Grant as his siblings.
A year later, he popped up in an episode of the BBC Scotland pensioners sitcom 'Still Game' as a mad bus driver.
©BBCColtrane played the Prime Minister in Geoffrey Sax's 2006 adaptation of spy action thriller 'Stormbreaker' - an adaptation of the Alex Rider novels with Alex Pettyfer, Mickey Rourke, Sophie Okenodo, Bill Nighy and Ewan McGregor which flopped at the box office after disappointing reviews.
There were good reviews for Rian Johnston's 2008 caper movie 'The Brothers Bloom' in which he appeared in a supporting role with Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo and Maximilian Schell.
There was a return to a primetime ITV crime drama role in the three episode miniseries 'Murderland' as a Detective Inspector who probed a horrific murder.
Coltrane also voiced 'The Gruffalo' in Max Lang and Jakob Schuh's BBC1 and ZDF Christmas Day adaptation of Julia Donaldson's popular children's tale with Helena Bonham Carter, James Corden, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Rob Brydon among the cast.
He reprised the role two years later in 'The Gruffalo's Child'.
©BBCIn 2011 Coltrane also played a prisoner who hold Jack Dee's comedian hostage in the last three episodes of the final series of the BBC4 sitcom 'Lead Balloon'.
He lent his voice to the role of Lord Dingwall to Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman's 2012 Disney Pixar animated Highland warrior tale 'Brave' with Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson and Billy Connolly.
Mike Newell also directed him as the lawyer Mr Jaggers in a positively received 2012 big screen adaptation of 'Great Expectations' with Jeremy Irvine, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Holliday Grainger, Sally Hawkins, Jason Flemyng, Ewen Bremner and David Walliams.
In his last movie role in the Richard Laxton directed and Emma Thompson scripted 2014 film 'Effie Gray,' Coltrane played a doctor among a cast that included Thompson, Dakota Fanning, Julie Walters, David Suchet, Derek Jacobi and Claudia Cardinale about the marriage of the Victorian writer and art critic John Ruskin to the art model Euphemia Gray.
The film stuttered at the box office after mixed reviews.
©Channel 4Coltrane earned rave reviews in 2016 as a popular TV comic accused of raping women in Jack Thorne's four part hard hitting #MeToo drama on Channel 4, 'National Treasure' with Julie Walters, Andrea Riseborough, Kate Hardie, Susan Lynch and Tim McInnerny.
The performance earned him the BAFTA nomination of his career for Best Actor.
His final dramatic role was playing Orson Welles in Sky Arts' opposite Saoirse Monica Jackson in a story about the great actor staging his kidnapping while working in Norwich.
Coltrane's final appearance onscreen, though, came on New Year's Day 2022 in the HBO Special 'Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts' during which he got emotional reminiscing about his work on the show.
©Sky ArtsIn later years, he developed osteoarthritis and was confined to a wheelchair from 2019.
He kept largely out of the spotlight but did voice his support for Scottish independence.
The outpouring of affection for Coltrane following his death was not surprising.
Throughout his career, Coltrane had always been a bit of a national treasure.
But he also was an actor of great range, wit, depth and intelligence whose work in comedy and drama will continue to be savoured for decades to come.
(Robbie Coltrane passed away at the age of 72 on October 14, 2022)
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