Top Gear named a corner after Michael Gambon – and if they knew why he was such a fast driver they’d have been stunned
WHEN Harry Potter star Sir Michael Gambon took Top Gear’s reasonably priced car around the final corner on two wheels, they named the bend in his honour.
But what Top Gear’s presenters did not was that the actor, who played Albus Dumbledore in the Hogwarts films, was used to speeding through country lanes — racing between his two families.
Sir Michael, who died yesterday from pneumonia, age 82, split his later life between wife Lady Anne, who lived in their £5million home near Meopham, Kent, and his much younger lover, Philippa Hart.
His unconventional life, as well as his self-deprecating opinion of his acting skills, was typical of the devil-may-care spirit cherished by friends — including Dame Helen Mirren, who last night lead tributes by describing the world-famous actor as “naughty but very, very funny”.
Set designer Philippa, 57, who he met while making the movie Longitude, lived in a smart home in Chiswick, West London with their two sons, Tom and Will, now teens.
And for more than 20 years, classic car fan Sir Michael raced in his Ferrari or a 187-mph Audi R8 between his wife of 60 years and his lover.
The £80,000 Audi was reported to be a “thanks for having me back” present.
He nicknamed the German motor “Teutonic Viagra”.
Lady Gambon was said to have been devastated by the news of her husband’s other relationship and moved out of their home.
But she later moved back into their house in Kent and is said to have told friends: “We were never apart.”
Within a year of their meeting, Sir Michael was openly describing Pippa as his “girlfriend” to fellow screen stars Charles Dance, Dame Maggie Smith and other cast members on his next movie, Gosford Park, in which he played a philandering aristocrat.
Friends said he described Miss Hart as “the love of my life”.
Actress Hetty Baynes, who co-starred with Sir Michael in the 2015 TV adaption of Potter author JK Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy, said the actor was “never happier than when his boys were on set”.
In 2016, she said: “They were so sweet and you can see he absolutely adores them. But I’m sure they run him ragged.
Michael John Gambon was born in Dublin on October 19, 1940.
His dad Edward was an engineer and mum Joan was a seamstress.
Young Michael was five when the family moved to England so his father could get work helping to rebuild the capital after the Blitz.
Gambon attended St Aloysius’ College in Highgate, North London before the family moved again, to North End in Kent, where Michael went to school in Crayford.
He left age 15 with no qualifications and later said: “I have no happy memories of school whatsoever.”
His father made him a British citizen which meant that when he was knighted by Prince Charles in 1998 he could call himself Sir Michael, honorary knight.
After school he became an apprentice at machine makers Vickers-Armstrong’s factory in Crayford and stayed until he was 21.
For the rest of his life he used his toolmaker skills on his many hobbies, including classic cars, piloting his own plane, clocks, watches and antique guns.
Avid movie fan Michael got the taste for acting when his dad sent him to help build sets at the Unity Theatre in North London.
Age 24, he decided to become an actor and wrote to theatre companies — with a totally false CV.
He eventually landed a junior job at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, where no one bothered to check his claim that he had taken the lead role in a George Bernard Shaw play in London.
After touring Europe in a production of Shakespeare’s Othello, actor Mike Gambon moved on to the National Theatre, run by Laurence Olivier.
During his audition Michael spun around a wooden column and badly gashed his arm on a nail.
Suddenly, Sir Larry, the world’s most famous actor, gave Michael his handkerchief to stem the heavy bleeding and sent him to A&E.
The next day Olivier called and told the hapless actor to “start on Monday”.
But he ended up with non-speaking roles as a spear-carrier, along with Derek Jacobi and Frank Finlay.
Gambon remembered: “I stayed for three-and-a-half years.
“Then I went to Sir Laurence and said, ‘Is there any chance of bigger parts?’ and he said, ‘No, I don’t think so’, and he rang up Birmingham Rep and I ended up being asked to go there.”
Eventually he landed a part in the swashbuckling 1968 BBC adventure series The Borderers, which was watched by producer Cubby Broccoli who was looking for a new James Bond after Sean Connery quit — but the audition for 007 did not go well.
Gambon remembered: “I said I didn’t want the part because I’m not like Bond. I haven’t got nice hair and I’m a bit fat.”
But Broccoli told him: “Well, the present James Bond doesn’t have any hair . . . it’s a wig.”
Instead, the starring role in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service went to Australian George Lazenby.
By now Gambon had been married for six years to mathematician Anne Miller and they had a son Fergus, now 59, who went on to be a ceramics expert and appears on the Antiques Roadshow.
Gambon was soon was wowing audiences and critics in the West End.
But in 1986 he became a household name thanks to the BBC TV drama The Singing Detective.
Writer Dennis Potter’s dark tale of a mystery writer confined to bed with a crippling skin and joint disease, who dreams of a fantasy world in which he plays a sleuth, earned Gambon a legion of new fans.
‘LOADS OF DOSH’
Sir Michael revealed that he tried to seduce his 22-year-old co-star Joanne Whalley who played nurse Mills.
In one famous comical scene, his bed-ridden character Philip Marlow tries not to become aroused while the nurse applies lotion to his body to ease the pain of his psoriasis.
Gambon told an audience at the BFI Southbank in London: “Joanne Whalley? I tried it but no luck. I loved Joanne Whalley.
“Even Dennis Potter whispered to me when we were talking about her and he said ‘Any luck?’.’
The role of author Marlow won him a Bafta — and he went on to win three more for playing French detective Maigret on ITV.
But it was when he stepped in, following the death of his pal Richard Harris to play Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films that he became world famous.
He said of the boy wizard movies: “I did six out of eight. Loads of dosh, then you go back to normal.
“I get stopped in the streets by kids. They ask me, ‘Are you Dumbledore?’. With children you have to be nice, don’t you? With adults I’m not so nice.”
Although being Dumbledore brought him riches, he did not feel it taxed his acting skills.
He said: “I just stick on a beard and play me, so it’s no great feat. I never ease into a role — every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. I’m not really a character actor at all.
“I can’t remember any of the films I’ve done. You go from one to the other and they all blend into a big mass.
“I remember Harry Potter because of the costume I wore — just two layers of silk and carpet slippers. Very comfortable.”
But in 2002 his prowess as a high-speed driver was discovered when he became the first Star in A Reasonably Priced Car to damage Top Gear’s Suzuki Liana.
Four years later he returned to the show’s race track at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey — where he knocked five seconds off his original time and revealed he was not keen on the final corner being named after him.
But last night former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson described Sir Michael as “a wonderful man”.
Jeremy wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “He was hugely amusing and such a tremendous guest.”
Dame Helen Mirren described her friend Sir Michael as “naughty but very, very funny” and “an extraordinary actor”.
Recalling working with him in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1982 production of Antony and Cleopatra, she said: “He kept me constantly in laughter.”