Had you told any member of the mid-Seventies general public that Michael Gambon would become one of Britain's greatest thespians and a film star to boot, you'd have been deafened by their howls of laughter. After all, he was known at the time simply as "the other bloke" in Richard Briers' unsuccessful follow-up to The Good Life. A few might recall him as the dashing hero of the period adventure series The Borderers. A few more might have spotted his bit-part in dodgy Amicus thriller The Beast Must Die. But theatre god? Film star? No one would ever have suspected that this big, unfortunately moustachioed galoot would rise so high.
What we didn't recognise then was the extraordinary talent the man possessed. We didn't know the years of work he'd already put in. We didn't realise that Laurence Olivier had hand-picked him for the original National Theatre Company as far back as 1963. We didn't understand that he'd then risen through the rep companies to successfully headline in Shakespeare's tragedies. We thought of him as a bumbling sidekick when, in fact, he was just a couple of years from becoming a fully-fledged West
nd behemoth. The film stardom would take much longer, but still it was an inevitable progression. So, belated apologies to Michael Gambon. Our ignorance cannot have been bliss for him.
He was born in Dublin during WW2, on the 19th of October, 1940, to be precise. Dark days, indeed, but still fun for an infant surrounded by a large extended family. Come the end of the war, when Michael was 5, it made sense that his father, an engineer, should cross the Irish Sea and find work amidst the rebuilding of London. Thus the family, including Michael and his seamstress mother, took up residence near Mornington Crescent, north London. Unbeknownst to Michael, his father would take out official papers for him, making him an English citizen - a fact that would later allow him to be awarded a CBE and a knighthood.
Growing up in a mostly struggling Irish community, Michael was raised a strict Roman Catholic. He attended the Jesuit St Aloysius Boys' School in Somers Town and served on the altar during the large-scale Latin masses of the time (he's said this was perhaps his first experience of performing). He'd move on to St Aloysius' College in Hornsey Lane, Highgate, one former pupil being Peter Sellers and one peer Bryan Manning, later to become a renowned Savile Row tailor. School was not a good time, Gambon later saying "My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day". It was no surprise when, after a brief stint at a school in Kent, he left at 15, with no qualifications whatsoever.
He decided to follow his father into engineering - a good, steady job - and took up an apprenticeship as a toolmaker at Vickers Armstrong in Crayford. It would take 7 years and leave him with an abiding fascination with all things mechanical. He has a serious collection of antique guns, clocks and watches, as well as classic cars.
The acting came gradually, almost accidentally. He'd first attended the theatre at the late age of 19 (though he'd always loved cinema). Then he'd had something of an epiphany when, passing the Shaftsbury Theatre one day, he noticed that the doors were open. The bustle of theatre life, the organised chaos of rehearsal leapt out at him and he approached for a closer look. This led him to join up with the Unity Theatre in
former pupil being Peter Sellers and one peer Bryan Manning, later to become a renowned Savile Row tailor. School was not a good time, Gambon later saying "My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day". It was no surprise when, after a brief stint at a school in Kent, he left at 15, with no qualifications whatsoever.
He decided to follow his father into engineering - a good, steady job - and took up an apprenticeship as a toolmaker at Vickers Armstrong in Crayford. It would take 7 years and leave him with an abiding fascination with all things mechanical. He has a serious collection of antique guns, clocks and watches, as well as classic cars.
The acting came gradually, almost accidentally. He'd first attended the theatre at the late age of 19 (though he'd always loved cinema). Then he'd had something of an epiphany when, passing the Shaftsbury Theatre one day, he noticed that the doors were open. The bustle of theatre life, the organised chaos of rehearsal leapt out at him and he approached for a closer look. This led him to join up with the Unity Theatre in Kings Cross, close to his home. He took to it immediately, as if there were some genetic attraction. It was "like a heartbeat", he recalled later "something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?"
Relying on the limited knowledge of the local community and quite fancying an extended trip back to the Emerald Isle, he wrote a letter to Michael MacLiammoir, the Irish theatre impressario who ran Dublin's Gate Theatre. It was accompanied by a CV describing a rich and wholly imaginary theatre career. And he was taken on. The adventure had begun.
While on the subject of deceit, Gambon is notorious for his lying. Throughout his career he has told magnificent porkies both to journalists and his peers about his past life and achievements. It's not to look big, just not to be bored. Often he would claim to have started out as a dancer at the Royal Ballet, only to have his career ruined when he fell from the stage and crashed through the orchestra's timpani kit. For years he carried round a photo of Robert De Niro that read "To Mike, Best wishes and love forever, Bob". He'd regale any entrant to his dressing-room with tales of the work he'd done with De Niro and the affection they had for one another - until some bright spark noted that Gambon had actually never worked with De Niro and clearly written the note himself. Most outrageously, he once claimed that he used to be gay, but stopped because it made his eyes water.
The thing is, he's so bright, so entertaining and such a brilliant actor, how would you know if he was lying (this is one reason why one should never date a thesp)? And why would you care? This has served Gambon well from the start, for he is famously keen to protect his private life from public scrutiny, feeling it would undermine his ability to convince when playing a character. He will not tell journalists of his life, not even his own biographer. Thus it is mere conjecture that, in 1961, at the very beginning of his stage career, he married former actress Ann Miller.
Gambon made his stage debut in the Gate Theatre's 1962 production of Othello, playing "2nd Gentleman". An inauspicious opening, but glory would quickly come his way when, the very next year, he was chosen by Sir Laurence Olivier to
