While modern audiences will remember Richard Griffiths as Uncle Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter franchise, the 65 year-old actor was also one the most highly respected stage actors of his generation. He passed away on March 28th following complications from heart surgery.

While stage work was where he learned his craft, he made the successful transition in the early 1970s into television. In the early 80’s he began a string of supporting roles in films like Gorky Park, but it was his role in the 1987 cult film Withnail and I, where he played lecherous Uncle Monty that, that would bring him more recognition to a wider audience. He parlayed that into other supporting roles in Hollywood like King Ralph, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, Guarding Tess and Sleepy Hollow.

In 2001, he debuted as Uncle Vernon in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, a role he would reprise five more times,...