Richard Griffiths, English actor (b. 1947)
Richard Thomas Griffiths (31 July 1947 – 28 March 2013) was an English actor of film, television, and stage. For his performance in the stage play The History Boys, Griffiths won much acclaim and received many awards including, a Tony Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award. For the 2006 film adaptation, Griffiths was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
He is most known for his role as Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter film series. He also portrayed Uncle Monty in Withnail and I (1987), and Henry Crabbe in Pie in the Sky (1994–1997). Earlier in his career, he had supporting roles in such critically acclaimed films as Chariots of Fire (1981), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Gandhi (1982), and The Naked Gun 2+1⁄2: The Smell of Fear (1991). In his later career he appeared in Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and in Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011).