Veteran British actor Richard Griffiths dies

Younger audiences may have known Griffiths as Vernon Durnsley from Harry Potter, but the British actor was a mainstay of UK cinema for decades, having achieved renown following his turn as 'Uncle Monty' in the cult classic black comedy Withnail and I (1987).

He won a Tony award - a prominent theatrical accolade - for his role in Alan Bennett's 2004 drama The History Boys, where he played the the inspirational-but-suspect history teacher Douglas Hector. He would go on to reprise the role in the play's 2006 film adaptation.

On stage, he would also rejoin his Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe for a revival of Peter Shaffer's provocative drama Equus in 2007.

Like most British actors of his professional standing, he would continue to toggle between home-grown British work and mainstream American cinema: appearing in blockbuster hits like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Hugo concurrently with British television specials like Charles Dickens adaptation Bleak House and The Hollow Crown - Henry V.

He also notably appeared in the 1982 Oscar-winning biopic Gandhi, in which he played a British journalist.

Griffiths once said that, had he had his way, "all actors over 55 would be issued a 3-lb. wet salmon with which to slap the face of every young, beautiful, successful upstart.

"'That's for being so lucky, you bastard!' I would shout. And then, hit them again, if you can."