Richard Harris 'swansong' role tipped for Oscar

Richard Harris, who once dismissed award ceremonies as "self-laudatory rubbish", is tipped to win his first Oscar six months after his death.

The charismatic Irish actor, who died of Hodgkin's disease a fortnight ago, is being lined up for the posthumous honour for his role in My Kingdom, a gritty thriller based on King Lear and set in the ganglands of modern-day Liverpool. The critically acclaimed movie stars Harris as Sandeman, an ageing and embittered gangster whose criminal empire begins to crumble after he bequeaths it to his feuding daughters.

Though Harris's return as Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has been widely described as his last major role, it is My Kingdom that is being promoted as his swansong.

As a mark of their confidence in the strength of Harris's performance, the movie's producers have arranged a week of screenings in Los Angeles early next month, ahead of its general release in America next February.

The special showings are for the Hollywood Press Association, the influential group of critics that decides the nominations for the Golden Globes, which traditionally act as a dry run for the Oscars.

Don Boyd, the director of My Kingdom, believes an Academy Award for the film would be a fitting epitaph for Harris, who often cited King Lear as the role he most yearned to play.

"Richard told me he had had seven false starts with Lear, on stage and screen," Boyd said.

"In some ways, I think it was a valediction for him. It's as great a performance as he's ever given, and the last scene has a poignancy that comes from a character who realises he is reaching the end of his life."

He added: "People have rather forgotten in light of the publicity surrounding Dumbledore that Richard's career was immense.

"If he won an Oscar for My Kingdom, I'd be thrilled. He deserves it. It would be a fitting tribute to one of the great screen actors of his generation."

The honour would make up for Harris's two previous failed nominations, for The Field in 1990, and Lindsay Anderson's classic rugby drama This Sporting Life in 1963.

Harris, who was cremated last week, is to be remembered at two memorials.His family and friends will gather later this month for a service in his native Limerick. A second, bigger, event will be held in London early next year. Harris's agent, Steve Kenis, said: "The atmosphere will be celebratory rather than funereal."