(AUSTRALIA OUT) (Photo by Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Fairfax Media via Getty Images
Michael Byrne, a prolific British actor who played Nazi Col. Ernst Vogel opposite Harrison Ford in the 1989 classic Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Gellert Grindelwald in 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part I, has died.
Bryne died on June 20, according to the UK’s The Guardian. He was 82. His cause of death was not given.
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A star of stage and screen, Byrne’s other film roles over the years included turns in actor-director Mel Gibson’s Best Picture Oscar winner Braveheart (1995), the Pierce Brosnan James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), director Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002) and The Sum of All Fears (2002), which starred Ben Affleck as the Tom Clancy hero Jack Ryan.
Byrne was born on Nov. 7, 1943, in London, and made his first screen appearances in bit roles on British television in 1962 and 1963. Also in 1963, Byrne began appearing in bit parts on stage at Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, according to The Guardian.
The actor’s breakthrough role on screen happened in 1996 with the role of Claudio in the BBC’s TV movie adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic play Much Ado About Nothing, where he starred opposite Derek Jacobi and Maggie Smith.
Michael Byrne Had More Than 160 Screen Credits
Hopping back and forth between his work on the British stage and screen, Michael Byrne compiled more than 160 roles in film and television.
Eleven years before starring opposite Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in director Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Byrne starred alongside the actor in the 1978 World War II epic Force 10 from Navarone.
Byrne’s other notable films included the 1976 WWII classic The Eagle Has Landed, which also starred Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall, as well as director Richard Attenborough’s 1977 WWII drama A Bridge Too Far, where he starred opposite Caine and Connery.
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The actor also appeared in Val Kilmer’s big-screen version of the classic TV series The Saint in 1997, and a year later, Byrne starred opposite Ian McKellen in the psychological thriller Apt Pupil.
On television, Byrne starred as Ted Page over 67 episodes from 2008 to 2010 in the long-running British daytime drama Coronation Street, and played recurring roles in the BBC medical drama Casualty in seven episodes from 2012 to 2015, and appeared in four episodes in the BBC crime drama Cuffs in 2015.
Byrne’s last credited screen role was for a guest turn in the Belgian comedy drama The Phoebus Files in 2023.
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