Inside Alan Rickman’s relationship with wife who he married after nearly 50 years

Alan Rickman was one of Britain’s most versatile actors, with the star known for his roles as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter franchise, Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Harry in Love Actually.

Saturday would have marked the star’s 80th birthday, but he sadly passed away at the age of 69 on 14 January 2016 following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Alan was survived by his wife, Rima Horton, an academic and former Labour Party councillor, who he had married in 2012. However, the pair had known each other for close to half a century before they made it down the aisle, first crossing paths as teenagers in 1965.

Read on for all you need to know about Alan’s wife…

Rima Horton

Although Rima would go on to become an academic and local politician, she originally had eyes on the acting world, joining an amateur theatre group at the Chelsea College of Arts. While studying there, she met Alan; Rima was 18 at the time, with Alan being one year her senior.

 Speaking to The Times last month, she recalled: “He stood out from an early age, he was always in a different league.”

Although the couple first met as teenagers, it took ten years for their friendship to become romantic, and nearly half a century before they married in a low-key ceremony held in New York City.

The couple never welcomed children, with Rima telling the publication it was a combination of “not wanting to and it being difficult with our careers”. She added: “It wasn’t a strong drive for either of us, I don’t regret it.”

© WireImage

While Alan continued in acting, Rima instead entered the world of politics, and in 1986, she was elected as a local councillor on the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council for the Labour Party. She held her seat for twenty years until she lost the seat to the Conservative Party in 2006.

Rima was with her husband when he died, and in 2021, she became a trustee of Pancreatic Cancer UK in his honour. A raffle draw was recently launched with lucky people winning copies of the Harry Potter books signed by the film’s stars; it has so far raised more than £126,000 for research into early detection of pancreatic cancer.

© Dave Benett/Getty Images

Appearing on BBC Breakfast to speak about the initiative, Rima spoke about Alan’s diagnosis, saying: “He had six months, it was a devastating diagnosis. He was Stage 4, he had chemo, which probably extended his life a bit, but it couldn’t cure him.”

She added: “He had so much more to give, so many more things he could have done, and if this [early detection] had been available, he might have done them.”