Potter stars among tributes to Sir Michael Gambon

Harry Potter co-stars of Sir Michael Gambon, who played Professor Albus Dumbledore in six films, are among those paying tribute to the stage and screen legend after his death aged 82.

Daniel Radcliffe said the "brilliant, effortless" actor "loved his job but never seemed defined by it".

Emma Watson thanked Sir Michael for "showing us what it looks like to wear greatness lightly".

Writer JK Rowling hailed a "wonderful man" and "outstanding actor".

Another Potter star, Fiona Shaw, said Sir Michael has shown during his long and varied life that he "could do anything" as an actor.

The Dublin-born actor, who died in hospital after a bout of pneumonia, worked in TV, film, theatre and radio in his six-decade career. He won four Baftas.

·?????? Sir Michael Gambon: A career in pictures

·?????? Stage and TV star who became Hogwarts headmaster

Sir Michael's family had moved to London when he was a child but he made his very first stage performance in Ireland, in a production of Othello in Dublin in 1962.

His career took off when he became one of the original members of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre acting company in London. He went on to win three Olivier awards for performances in National Theatre productions.

Although he always regarded his theatre work as the most important, he won acclaim for a series of key TV and cinema roles in the 1980s and 1990s.

These included the ground-breaking and controversial BBC One drama The Singing Detective, in which he played the eponymous sleuth in a complex tale from writer Dennis Potter.

He played a very different detective, Parisian Jules Maigret, in two series of an ITV adaptation of Georges Simenon's classic novels, and portrayed Oscar Wilde in 1985 in a three-part BBC Two series focused on the writer's criminal trial and imprisonment.

One of his most memorable cinematic outings was as the gluttonous and irredeemable "thief" in 1989's The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover,

Dame Helen Mirren - who played his adulterous wife, said he was a "naughty but very, very funny" friend.

In an interview for this weekend's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Dame Helen recalled how he had kept her "constantly in laughter" during filming and also when they appeared on stage in Antony and Cleopatra seven years previously.

She added that in recent times the two had discussed growing older, and how that affected their work:

Sir Michael was "utterly realistic" about his situation, she said. "He found it increasingly difficult to remember lines, which I have the greatest of sympathy with, and that sort of took him away from theatre," she said.

Other notable film roles in the following decade saw him playing opposite some of Hollywood's biggest names, in big-screen hits such as Toys, Sleepy Hollow, Gosford Park. There was even time for a comedic cameo as the prime minister in Ali G Indahouse.