{"id":2484257,"date":"2026-07-01T23:24:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T23:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2484257"},"modified":"2026-07-01T23:24:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T23:24:24","slug":"british-actor-michael-byrne-dies-at-82-nbc-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/british-actor-michael-byrne-dies-at-82-nbc-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"British actor Michael Byrne dies at 82 \u2013 NBC Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>British actor Michael Byrne, known for his roles in \u201cHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1\u201d and \u201cIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade,\u201d died June 20. <\/p>\n<p>He was 82.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Michael Byrne,\u201d a representative for the actor said in a statement. \u201cMichael will be remembered as an extraordinary actor whose talent, warmth, and sense of humour touched so many.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Byrne\u2019s cause of death was not immediately revealed. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/2026\/jun\/30\/michael-byrne-obituary\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian first reported his death<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Byrne appeared in films and TV shows since the 1960s, with his latest credit in 2023, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0126250\/\" target=\"_blank\">according to his IMDb page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He also held a role in Mel Gibson\u2019s \u201cBraveheart,\u201d playing a violent soldier named Smythe.<\/p>\n<p>Byrne started his career on the small screen, scoring roles in TV shows such as \u201cNo Hiding Place,\u201d \u201cSilent Playground\u201d and \u201cITV Saturday Night Theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His film career took off in 1963 in \u201cThe Scarlet Blade.\u201d The film was later retitled \u201cThe Crimson Blade\u201d in the U.S. <\/p>\n<p>Prior to that, as <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/news\/michael-byrne-dead-harry-potter-1236799475\/\" target=\"_blank\">Variety reported<\/a>, Byrne starred on stage with a number of roles in shows for Laurence Olivier\u2019s National Theatre Company, including \u201cRomeo and Juliet,\u201d \u201cThe Cherry Orchard,\u201d \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing,\u201d \u201cDeath and the Maiden at the Royal Court,&#8221; \u201cThe Double Dealer\u201d and \u201cThe Seagull.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d series, he played an older Gellert Grindelwald, a notorious dark wizard. Over his seven-decade career, Byrne racked up more than 170 credits, according to Variety, from TV to film to theater.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/media.nbcnewyork.com\/assets\/editorial\/national\/2026\/in-memoriam\/index-sm.html\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nbcchicago.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British actor Michael Byrne, known for his roles in \u201cHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1\u201d and \u201cIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade,\u201d died June 20. He was 82. \u201cIt is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Michael Byrne,\u201d a representative for the actor said in a statement. \u201cMichael will be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2484258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[24003,100241],"class_list":["post-2484257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-celebrity-news","tag-in-memoriam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/British-actor-Michael-Byrne-dies-at-82-\u2013-NBC-Chicago.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2484259,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484257\/revisions\/2484259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2484258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}