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Biography
Gambon was born in 1940. He is an Irish-born British actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. At the age of eighteen, Gambon entered drama school at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He studied for three years, receiving a BA in Classical Acting. Gambon built a very solid CV whilst at RADA, including the works of William Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov. While at RADA, age nineteen, he joined the Unity Theatre in King's Cross. Five years later he wrote a letter to Michael MacLiammoir, the Irish theatre impresario 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.
In 1998, he was knighted for his services to drama.
In 2004, he took the role as Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts's headmaster in the third Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, taking over from the late Richard Harris. Gambon reprised the role of Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which was released in 2005. He returned to the role again in the fifth film, 2007's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the sixth film, 2009's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. From 2010 to 2011, he appeared in the two-part adaptation of the seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2.
Doctor Who
Michael Gambon co-starred in A Christmas Carol, which aired on Christmas Day 2010. In it he played redeemed enemy Kazran Sardick and his father, Elliot Sardick. The announcement of his casting was shortly after his farewell to the Harry Potter franchise. He appeared alongside singer Katherine Jenkins, whom he got on well with. He became the second knight to appear in Doctor Who after Derek Jacobi.