Harry Potter star Robbie Coltrane’s cause of death revealed: ‘Constant pain’

Daniel Radcliffe has issued a statement after the death of his Harry Potter co-star Robbie Coltrane. Photo / Supplied

Robbie Coltrane died from six conditions including organ failure.

The Harry Potter actor’s death certificate, revealed by the Daily Mirror over the weekend, also reveals he was suffering diabetes and obesity. It is understood Coltrane, who died on October 14 aged 72, had been unwell for years ahead of his death, with the acting veteran previously opening up about his “constant pain”.

Coltrane’s death certificate lists his birth name Anthony Robert McMillan and his stage name of Coltrane, which he adopted in the 1970s in tribute to the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

The actor, whose death was registered by his former wife Rhona Gemmell, said in 2020 he was left in agony after his knee cartilage disintegrated. It left the James Bond actor wheelchair bound and in pain so severe he said he wouldn’t wish it on his “worst enemy”.

He told the Daily Express in one of his last interviews in 2020: “I was fighting pain 24 hours a day when I was in National Treasure and Great Expectations.

”I had no cartilage in my knee. It was bone on bone.”

Former heavy drinker Coltrane was battling in 2016 to lose 44kg after doctors warned him not slimming down could leave him a “cripple”.

When he had shed 31kg, he started to be in “constant pain all day” and he said medics found after an exploratory operation he had “no cartilage left in one of my knees”, adding it had “completely disintegrated”.

UK actor Robbie Coltrane, known for playing Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, has died at 72. Photo / AP

By 2020 the actor said he found some relief after receiving joint surgery in America. He added at the time: “It was just horrible. The relief from that pain since the operation and being able to sleep has changed my life.”

Coltrane pulled out of an appearance at ComicCon at the Olympia, London, in July, with organisers saying it was due to his “ongoing ill health”.

Coltrane’s agent, Belinda Wright, announced his death by saying: “My client and friend Robbie Coltrane OBE passed away on Friday, October 14 … for me personally, I shall remember him as an abidingly loyal client.

”As well as being a wonderful actor, he was forensically intelligent, brilliantly witty and after 40 years of being proud to be called his agent, I shall miss him.”

She added the actor is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his children Spencer and Alice and their mother Rhona Gemmell, a sculptor Coltrane married in 1999 but divorced in 2003.