Gambon, Michael John

Gambon, Michael John (1940– ), Irish-born British actor who trained for seven years as an engineer before turning to the theatre, making his début in Dublin in 1962, and playing small parts at the National Theatre, 1963–7. At the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 1967–9, he began to play major roles (Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus), and from there moved to the RSC, 1970–1. He was seen in several West End productions, including Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests (1974) and Just between Ourselves (1977), but it was not until 1980, as Brecht's Galileo at the National Theatre, that he achieved stardom, appearing there in the same year in Pinter's Betrayal. In 1982 he played King Lear, and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, for the RSC. By now widely acclaimed, he returned to the National to give excellent comic performances in Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval (1985) and A Small Family Business (1987), and in a revival of the old farce Tons of Money (1986). He was also impressive as the tragically jealous father in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge (NT and Aldwych, 1987) and as Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1988) in the West End, where in 1990 he starred in another Ayckbourn comedy, Man of the Moment.