Gambon : a life in acting

'Entertaining' and 'illuminating' profile now in paperback to mark Gambon's Falstaff for the National Theatre Michael Gambon is a notoriously private man.

Yet this profile of him in his own words - assembled from interviews with drama critic, Mel Gussow - offers the most complete portrait yet of a man who 'has just about everything - enormous power, great depth, absolute expertise and the ability to illuminate a character by the simplest of means' (Harold Pinter).

The book is rounded off by interviews with writers, directors and actors who have worked with him (Dennis Potter, Alan Ayckbourn, Harold Pinter, Simon Russell Beale, Deborah Warner).

Michael Gambon was born in Dublin in 1940. With no formal training he talked his way into Olivier's National Theatre in 1963.

Roles at the RSC and in the West End followed, as well as film and TV work, most famously in The Singing Detective.

He has been seen recently on the stage in Beckett's Endgame and on screen as the new Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.

He was knighted in 1998. He tackles Falstaff for the first time at the National Theatre in April 2005.