Everything about Robbie Coltrane totally explained
Robbie Coltrane,
OBE (born
30 March 1950) is a
Scottish actor, comedian and author.
Biography
Early life
Coltrane was born
Anthony Robert McMillan in
Rutherglen,
South Lanarkshire, the son of Jean McMillan Ross (
née Howie), a teacher and
pianist, and Ian Baxter McMillan, a
general practitioner who also served as a
forensic police surgeon. He has an older sister, Annie, and a late younger sister, Jane. Coltrane is the great-grandson of Scottish businessman
Thomas W. Howie. He was educated at the prestigious
Glenalmond College in
Perthshire, from which he was nearly expelled after hanging the prefects' gowns from the school clocktower. Though he later described his experiences there as deeply unhappy, he played for the First XV, was head of the school's debating society and won prizes for his art. From Glenalmond, Coltrane went on to
Glasgow School of Art, where he was ridiculed for "having an accent like Prince Charles (which he quickly disposed of, though not before gaining the nickname "
Lord Fauntleroy") and then the
Moray House College Of Education in
Edinburgh. Coltrane later called for public schools to be banned and used to be known as "Red Robbie", rebelling against his conservative upbringing through involvement with
Amnesty International,
Greenpeace, the
Labour Party and the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Career
Coltrane moved into acting in his early twenties, taking the stage name Coltrane (in tribute to jazz saxophonist
John Coltrane) and working in
theatre and
stand-up comedy. Appearing in the 1981
BBC television comedy series
A Kick Up the Eighties, his comic skills also brought him roles in the
The Comic Strip Presents (1982) series and the comedy sketch shows
Alfresco (1983-1984) and
Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee (1984).
Coltrane soon moved into
films, obtaining roles in a number of movies such as
Flash Gordon (1980),
Death Watch (1980),
Scrubbers (1983),
Krull (1983),
Absolute Beginners (1986),
Mona Lisa (1986) and appeared as "Annabelle" in
The Fruit Machine (1988). On television, he also appeared in
The Young Ones,
Tutti Frutti (1987), as
Samuel Johnson in
Blackadder (1987) (a role he later reprised in the more serious
Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands (1993)), and in a number of stand-up and sketch comedy shows. He played the part of
Falstaff in
Kenneth Branagh's
Henry V (1989) He co-starred with
Eric Idle in
Nuns on the Run (1990), and played the
Pope in
The Pope Must Die (1991). He also played a would-be private detective obsessed with
Humphrey Bogart in the TV play
The Bogie Man. His roles went from strength to strength in the 1990s with the
TV series Cracker (1993-1996, 2006 one-off special) and a
BAFTA award as the stepping stone to parts in bigger films such as the
James Bond films
GoldenEye (1995) and
The World Is Not Enough (1999) and a major supporting role in
From Hell (2001) as well as half-giant
Rubeus Hagrid in the
Harry Potter films (2001-2011).
J.K. Rowling, author of the
Harry Potter series, has stated that she created the character of Hagrid based on Coltrane's likeness.
Coltrane has also presented a number of popular
documentary programmes for the British
ITV network based around his twin passions for
travel and transportation.
"
Coltrane in a Cadillac" (1993) saw him cross
North America from
Los Angeles to
New York behind the wheel of a
1951 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe Convertible. A journey of 3,765
miles (6,059
kilometres) which he completed in 32 days.
In 1997 Coltrane appeared in a series of six programs under the title "
Coltrane's Planes and Automobiles" in which he extolled the virtues of a number of engineering achievements, namely the
Steam Engine, the
Diesel Engine, the
Supercharger, the
V8 Engine, the
Two Stroke engine, and the
Jet Engine. In these programs he showed he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, getting involved with dismantling and rebuilding several engines. He also single-handledly removed the engine from a
Trabant car in 23 minutes.
In August 2007, Coltrane presented a series for
ITV called "
B-Road Britain" in which he travelled from London to Glasgow, stopping in at quirky towns and villages along the way.
Coltrane was voted No. 10 in
ITV's "TV's 50 Greatest Stars" and sixth in a poll of 2000 adults across the UK to find the 'most famous Scot', behind the
Loch Ness Monster,
Robert Burns,
Sean Connery,
Robert the Bruce and
William Wallace.
Personal life
Coltrane lives in
Stirlingshire. He is currently separated from his wife, with whom he fathered two children, Spencer and Alice. He collects
vintage cars.
Filmography
Further Information
Get more info on 'Robbie Coltrane'.
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