| Matthew Garber | |
|---|---|
Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber in a publicity photo for Mary Poppins |
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| Born | Matthew Adam Garber 25 March 1956 Stepney, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 13 June 1977 (aged 21) Hampstead, London |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1963–1967 |
Matthew Adam Garber (25 March 1956 [1] – 13 June 1977[2]) was a British actor best known for his role as Michael Banks in Walt Disney's 1964 film Mary Poppins. Born in Stepney, London to parents who had both performed on stage, he attended St Paul's Primary School in Winchmore Hill and Highgate School in Highgate, North London.
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Garber made his screen debut at age seven in Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina. That same year, he and Thomasina co-star Karen Dotrice were hired to play Michael and Jane, the children of George Banks (David Tomlinson), who gets more than he bargained for when he hires a nanny named Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews). Disney's live-action/animated film adaptation of the Mary Poppins book series by P. L. Travers won five Academy Awards and made its stars world-famous.
Garber and Dotrice paired up again in 1967 in the The Gnome-Mobile, as the grandchildren of a rich lumber mogul (Walter Brennan) who stumble across a gnome forest and are asked to help keep the gnomes from dying off.
On 13 June 1977, Garber died at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, of hemorrhagic necrotising pancreatitis at the age of 21. On 24 October 2004, the Mail on Sunday ran an interview with Fergus Garber, identified as Garber's younger brother (by eight years); he told reporters that Garber had contracted hepatitis—probably, he said, from eating "bad meat"—while traveling in India in 1976, and it had already spread to his pancreas when their father brought Garber back to England the following year. Fergus denied any suggestion that his brother was using drugs.
Matthew and his father got back to London only about a week before he died.
Matthew was seen at Coppetts Wood Hospital and then The Royal Free Hospital. By then, he was in a coma and never recovered.
Garber's body was later cremated at St Marylebone Crematorium (East Finchley) London on 16 June 1977.
Garber was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 2004; Fergus Garber accepted on his behalf.
On the Mary Poppins 40th Anniversary DVD, Karen Dotrice admitted that she regretted not keeping in touch with Garber before his death.
| Year | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1963 | The Three Lives of Thomasina | Geordie |
| 1964 | Mary Poppins | Michael Banks |
| 1967 | The Gnome-Mobile | Rodney Winthrop |