Google Doodle on Sunday, April 30 celebrates Alan Rickman- an English actor famous for his Broadway play ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’.
Rickman died on January 14,2016. He was 69. On this day in 1987, he performed in ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’.
Les Liaisons dangereuses was a French play written by Christopher Hampton in 1985. It was adapted from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel of the same title, which was published in 1782.
The play is about two rivals Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, who used sex for humiliating each other.
Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman led the story at Broadway. It was directed by Howard Davies. The French play had eight previews before it opened at the Music Box Theatre on April 30, 1987. It ran for 149 performances.
Hampton was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. Duncan won the Theatre World Award and the show won the 1987 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.
Rickman also featured in several critically acclaimed films. Some of his works are: Die Hard (1988), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Galaxy Quest (1999), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), Love Actually (2003), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Bottle Shock (2008), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) and Eye in the Sky (2015).
The English actor studied graphic design at Chelsea College of Art and Design and the Royal College of Art. Post graduation, he started a design company. He only pursued professional acting when he was 26 years old. He was a part of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The 69-year-old appeared in The Tempest and Love’s Labour’s Lost.
In 1988, Rickman starred as Hans Gruber in Die Hard.