Daniel Radcliffe broke down in tears during the filming of Who Do You Think You Are? after reading his great-grandfather’s suicide note, which he may have written after suffering antisemitic prejudice at the hands of British police.
Mr Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter in the eponymous film series, learned that his ancestor, Samuel Gershon, had been financially ruined by a robbery at the family’s Hatton Garden jewellery business in 1936.
Faced with destitution and the police’s suspicions he staged the raid to claim an insurance payment, he took his life aged 42.
Mr Radcliffe said: “Everything he had worked for and that his father had worked for, has sort of been destroyed.
