LONDON – Versatile British actor Paul Ritter, who appeared in the “Harry Potter” franchise and played a key figure behind nuclear disaster in “Chernobyl,” has died, his agent said Tuesday.
He was 54 and had been suffering from a brain tumor. A familiar face to British television viewers and theatregoers, Ritter played Martin Goodman, the eccentric father of a London Jewish family, in the Channel 4 sitcom “Friday Night Dinner.” He also played ill-fated nuclear engineer Anatoly Dyatlov in the HBO drama “Chernobyl;” the wizard Eldred Worple in “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince;” and appeared as a devious political operative in the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace.” Ritter was a regular cast member in productions at Britain’s National