Michael Gambon

Sir Michael Gambon, CBE (born 19th October 1940) played Kazran Sardick and Elliot Sardick in A Christmas Carol.

Biography
Gambon was born in 1940, and is an Irish-born British actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. At the age of 18, Gambon went off to attend a drama school at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and studied classical acting for three years, eventually receiving a BA in Classical Acting. Gambon built a very solid CV whilst at RADA consisting of the works of William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov and many others. Aged 19, while at RADA, he joined the Unity Theatre in King's Cross. Five years later he wrote a letter to Michael MacLiammoir, the Irish theatre impresario who ran Dublin's Gate Theatre. It was accompanied by a CV describing a rich and wholly imaginary theatre career – and he was taken on.

In 2004, he took the role as Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts's headmaster in the third instalment of J.K. Rowling's franchise, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, taking over from the late Richard Harris. (Harris had also played Maigret on television four years before Gambon took that role.) Gambon reprised the role of Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which was released in November 2005 in the United Kingdom and the United States. He returned to the role again in the fifth film, 2007's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He appeared in the seventh film; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts I and II, released in two parts in 2010 and 2011.

Doctor Who
Michael Gambom co-starred in A Christmas Carol, which aired on Christmas Day 2010 and in which he played redeemed enemy Kazran Sardick (and briefly his father, Elliot Sardick). The announcement of his casting was shortly after his farewell to the Harry Potter franchise. He appeared alongside singer Katherine Jenkins who he got on well with.