'Chernobyl' and 'Harry Potter' actor Paul Ritter dies at 54

VERSATILE British actor Paul Ritter, whose roles ranged from a hapless suburban patriarch in sitcom "Friday Night Dinner" to a Soviet engineer who helps cause a 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 acerbic but warm Channel 4 sitcom "Friday Night Dinner."

He also played ill-fated nuclear engineer Anatoly Dyatlov in the Emmy-winning HBO drama "Chernobyl;" the wizard Eldred Worple in "Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince;" and a devious political operative in the James Bond film "Quantum of Solace."