British character actor Michael Byrne, best known for playing memorable villains in the Indiana Jones and Harry Potter franchises, has died. He was 82. The London native logged more than 170 film and television credits over his 60-plus-year career, with some of his best-known roles including Nazi colonel Ernst Vogel in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Byrne’s acting career kicked off in 1963, when he joined Laurence Olivier’s inaugural National Theatre Company in London, where he appeared in productions of Death and the Maiden and Romeo and Juliet. He made his film debut in The Scarlet Blade that same year and continued acting on screen for six decades. His final screen credit came in The Phoebus Files, a six-part miniseries. “He was good at being bad. An excellent actor,” one user wrote on X, acknowledging Byrne’s many antagonist roles. “He will be missed.” Byrne’s cause of death has not been confirmed. He is survived by his wife, Carole Nimmons, from whom he was separated but who cared for him in his later years, and their two daughters, Tara and Bryony.
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