Alan Rickman was honoured with a Google Doodle to commemorate the 36th anniversary of one of his earliest main stage performances, which the internet firm described as “instrumental in launching his career.”
The English actor, who died in 2016 at the age of 69, made his Broadway debut on April 30, 1987, as anti-hero Le Vicomte de Valmont in a production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
In the artwork posted on Sunday, artist Helene Leroux designed the Google Doodle and stated that it was a ‘pleasure to respect’ Rickman’s life and career.
She added: ‘I wanted to illustrate Alan’s passion for creativity – represented in the soft watercolours of the background in reference to some of Alan’s most beautiful artwork.
‘Following his death, Alan’s popular autobiographical diaries also captured the nation’s attention; these candid and entertaining reflections are represented by the fine, fountain-pen like scratches layered on a background resembling white lined paper.
‘The branches either side of the Doodle are also inspired by his diary scribbles. His diverting on-screen performances have no doubt left a unique and lasting imprint on British culture, and I am thrilled that it lives on via my doodle today.’
Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries was published posthumously in October, providing readers with an intimate peek into his life and career, and has been selected for an award at The British Book Awards this year.
Rickman was born in West London on February 21, 1946, and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company and landing a breakthrough part in the 1982 BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles.
Rickman appeared in The Tempest and Love’s Labour’s Lost on stage before receiving a Tony nomination for his performance as Valmont in a 1987 New York production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, based on the French book by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.
In the 1988 action picture Die Hard, he played German criminal mastermind Hans Gruber.
Four years later, he received a Bafta for best supporting actor in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, in which he portrayed an adversary once more as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Rickman was nominated for another Bafta for his performances in the 1995 Jane Austen period drama Sense And Sensibility and the 1996 biographical film Michael Collins before taking on the role of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin.
He subsequently played Severus Snape, the complex potions teacher, in 2001’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
He would go on to appear in all eight Harry Potter films, based in JK Rowling‘s Wizarding World, as he assisted the hero of the narrative in defeating the evil Voldemort – while still being antagonistic to his pupil.
Rickman’s most recent film performances include the 2014 historical drama A Little Chaos and the 2015 thriller Eye In The Sky. He is most recognised for his portrayal in the 2007 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Source My Celebrity Life.
