Robert Hardy

Robert Hardy, the English actor who played Cornelius Fudge in several “Harry Potter” films, died Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017, in Denville Hall Retirement home for actors, Northwood, London, England, according to multiple news sources including the BBC. He was 91.

Hardy played Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in four films: “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (2002), “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004), “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005), and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (2007).

Hardy was born Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy Oct. 29, 1925, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. He served in the Royal Air Force shortly after beginning his education at Oxford University. After his service, he went back to Oxford to finish his undergraduate studies. While at Oxford, two of his teachers were the writers C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

He started acting in 1959, performing classical roles in Shakespeare plays. He had many television credits as well; TV roles included the businessman Alec Stewart in “The Troubleshooters,” an award-winning BBC series, from 1966 until 1970.

Hardy played the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in “Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years” (1981), and won a BAFTA award, the British equivalent of the Oscar. He would go on to play the famous leader several more times.

In a 2015 article for the Daily Mail, Hardy said playing Churchill was the greatest challenge of his acting career.

“To prepare,” he wrote, “I spent nine months listening - morning, afternoon and evening - to 24 double-sided long playing records of all the speeches he’d made. By the end of those nine months I could tell which of the recordings Churchill had made before lunch, and which he’d made after!”

Hardy also played U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the BBC serial “Bertie and Elizabeth.”

In all, Hardy had more than 130 acting credits during his long film and TV career. He played headmaster roles in the films “Young Winston” (1972) and “A Feast at Midnight” (1994). Other films included “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), “The Barber of Siberia” (1998), and “An Ideal Husband” (1998).

In 1981, he was appointed a commander of the Order of the British Empire during Queen Elizabeth II's birthday celebration.

His first marriage, in 1952, was to Elizabeth Fox; they divorced in 1956. He married Sally Pearson in 1961; that marriage also ended in divorce, in 1986. He is survived by a son, Paul Hardy, from his first marriage, and by two daughters from his second marriage, Justine and Emma Hardy.

He was a close friend of actor Richard Burton, whom he met at Oxford University. He shared some memories of their wartime friendship and read extracts from Burton's newly-published diaries at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2012.

While playing Henry V, Hardy developed an interest in medieval warfare, and in 1963 he wrote and presented an acclaimed television documentary on the subject of the Battle of Agincourt. He also wrote two books on the subject of the longbow, Longbow: A Social and Military History, and The Great Warbow; From Hastings to the Mary Rose with Matthew Strickland. He was one of the experts consulted by the archaeologist responsible for raising the Mary Rose. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers of the City of London from 1988 to 1990. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

In February 2013, Hardy withdrew from his scheduled performance as Winston Churchill in Peter Morgan's play, The Audience, after suffering cracked ribs as the result of a fall.

Hardy died on 3 August 2017, aged 91, at Denville Hall, a home for retired actors.