Neil Fingleton

Actor and star of Game of Thrones Born: December 18, 1980; Died: February 25, 2017 NEIL Fingleton, who has died of suspected heart failure, aged only 36, was in the Guinness Book of Records as Britain’s tallest man and, after a career in basketball was cut short by injury, he exploited his height to pursue work in acting and played Mag the Mighty, the king of the giants, in Game of Thrones.

He was born in Durham in 1980 and grew to a height of seven feet and seven and a half inches. He came from a tall family, with one great-grandfather reputedly measuring 6ft 8 in. His parents were both over 6ft. His father fixed conveyor belts for a living, his mother was a nurse.

“I have always been taller than everyone since I can remember,” he said on the Guinness World Records website. “My height really took off when I reached 11 and was touching 7ft. By the time I was 16, I was 7 ft 5 in.

“I never let my height play a negative part in my life … Some tall people may be restricted as they are constantly stared at or people ask the same questions over and over. This is the only bad thing about being tall – the stupid remarks and questions. Other than that, being tall is great.”

His height presented Fingleton with opportunities on the basketball court and he spent eight years in the United States at high school and university, graduating in history. In 1998 The New York Times carried an article about him. He was making a name for himself playing basketball at Holy Name High School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The paper noted that at 17 he had size 15 feet, slept in a specially-made 8ft-long bed and was already taller than all but two players in the NBA professional league.

Subsequently he played professional basketball in the US, Greece, Italy and Spain, but injury forced him out of the game in his mid-20s and he returned to England and began his showbusiness career as the giant in a production of the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk in Poole in Dorset.

Fingleton had a minor role as a bodyguard in X-Men: First Class (2011), but probably made his biggest impact on the small screen as Mag the Mighty in the fourth season of the phenomenally successful HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. His costume and make-up took four hours to put on.

Mag is memorably seen riding a mammoth in an attack on The Wall. Using his superhuman strength, he manages to lift the gate at Castle Black before dying in a confrontation with members of the Night Watch. After the battle the commander Mance Rayder describes him as the last of a bloodline that stretches back before the first men and the opposing leaders toast his memory.

Fingleton was a samurai in the Keanu Reeves action flop 47 Ronin (2013), which filmed partly on Skye; he worked as a motion capture actor for the villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014) – in other words, his movement was recorded and served as the basis for the creation of the character on computer; and he played The Fisher King, an alien warlord in the Doctor Who story Before the Flood (2015), although other actors supplied the character’s voice and roar.

Towards the end of his life he launched a clothing line called 7 Foot 7 for very tall people. He is survived by his mother, sister and brother. Telephone 0141-302 6000 or by e-mail at announcements@heraldandtimes.co.uk