Cancer has claimed the life of another celebrated British talent after David Bowie. Alan Rickman, the acclaimed British stage and movie actor, has died of the illness at the age of 69 in London.

The world knows him as Severus Snape, one of the professors at the Hogwarts School in JK Rowling’s fantasy fiction series Harry Potter. Who else but Rickman to play the acerbic and chilly character, who appears to be a slave of the dark lord Voldemort?

But Rickman was much, much more than one of countless British stage actors who frequently fetch up in Hollywood franchises to lend them gravitas and credibility. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate honed his skills on the London stage, such as in Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Here is Rickman in the title role in a 2010 adaptation of the Ibsen play John Gabriel Borkman.

Rickman’s low and deep rumble (A British study on the most appealing male voice arrived at a mixture of Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon), peculiar style of enunciation and ability to inhabit just about any character made him a favourite in Hollywood. His villainous turns as Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988) and and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) are among his best-known, but he is equally reputed for his dramatic roles, such as in Ang Lee’s fabulously delicate Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Alan Rickman also directed two movies, The Winter Guest (1997), about the troubled relationship between a widow and her mother, and A Little Chaos (2004), starring Kate Winslet as a gardener in the court of Louis the XVI. He once said that “there should be a law” against both acting and directing, adding, “Of course, you think about Orson Welles and think shut up and get on with it.”

A master class in acting by Rickman is provided by artist David Michalek’s 2011 project Portraits in Dramatic Time, in which 10-second scenes are played back in extreme slow-motion to stretch the running length. Here is Rickman having a cup of tea.