West End stars pay tribute to ‘great’ Alan Rickman at play that forged his movie career

Tribute: The cast of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Donmar Warehouse honour Alan Rickman
Robert Dex @RobDexES15 January 2016
The Weekender

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Alan Rickman was hailed as “a great man of the British theatre” at a West End performance of the play that made him a star.

Fellow actor Janet McTeer paid tribute to the star of Harry Potter and Die Hard — whose death from cancer aged 69 was announced yesterday — after the final curtain of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Donmar Warehouse.

She is appearing in a new production of the play alongside Dominic West in the role of the seductive aristocrat Le Vicomte de Valmont, played by Rickman 30 years ago.

It was his performance in that play, with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the West End and on Broadway, that made him a star and led to him being cast as the villainous Hans Gruber in Die Hard opposite Bruce Willis.

Alan Rickman - in pictures

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The Donmar’s artistic director Josie Rourke said: “Janet knew Alan. She just stepped forward and said a few words and dedicated the performance to him.

"It seemed fitting to remember him as a great man of the British theatre.

“I’ll remember Alan for when I was at the Bush Theatre and we wanted to put on Nick Payne’s debut play If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.

"Our budget was committed and he was one of the people who helped us find the money to make sure it happened.

“He did it without fanfare simply because he loved the theatre. He was a very kind and generous man.”

Among tributes by other actors to London-born Rickman, Kate Winslet called him “the best of men” and Emma Thompson praised his “humour, wisdom and kindness”.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe said Rickman — Severus Snape in the film series — was “one of the greatest actors I will ever work with”.

Potter fans have left flowers at King’s Cross station, the location of platform 9¾ in the movies where the wizard boards the train taking him to Hogwarts.

Rickman revealed last year that he had married his partner Rima Horton in 2012. They had been together since he was 19.

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