GOLDEN Globe winning actor Sir Ian McKellen has led the tributes to his childhood friend and Nobel Prize winner Sir Harry Kroto.

The Lord of the Rings actor told an audience of Sir Harry’s friends, academics, students and members of the public at the University of Sussex about his decades-long relationship with the world-leading scientist and described what a “looker” his friend was in his youth.

The actor, who is currently in Brighton performing No Man’s Land with Patrick Stewart, gave a rousing speech describing Sir Harry’s feeling of detachment growing up in Lancashire as a son of immigrant parents.

Fellow scientists also paid tribute to the university's emeritus professor’s humour, “infectious enthusiasm” and his love of dancing.

A celebration of the life of the great scientist was held yesterday in a packed Attenborough Centre For Creative Arts on the University of Sussex campus in memory of Sir Harry who died in May at the age of 76.

Sir Harry was working at the University of Sussex when he and his team made a breakthrough that changed the fundamental understanding of chemistry.

The research into the identification of carbon chains in the interstellar medium lead to the discovery of the C60 molecule known more commonly as Buckminsterfullerene or Bucky Balls.

The research led to an entirely new branch of chemistry with potential applications ranging from rocket fuel to anti-Aids drugs.

Sir Harry also played a key role in helping to build the University of Sussex into a centre of research where he pursued his interest in giant stars and interstellar gas clouds with more startling discoveries.

He received a host of scientific accolades including the Nobel prize for chemistry and a knighthood in 1996 and the Michael Faraday prize in 2001.

Sir Harry’s Jewish family escaped from Germany as refugees in the 1930s and settled in Lancashire.

Sir Ian described how his great friend always felt slightly detached at school because he was a boy of immigrants’ parents whose dad was incarcerated on the Isle of Man during the war.

The six-time Laurence Olivier award winner then gave The Attenborough Centre audience a thrilling recital of Shakespeare’s The Bard of Sir Thomas More, the actor putting on a hugely passionate delivery of the piece challenging anti-immigration rioters in London.

Sir Ian added: “What a looker he was! I don’t remember falling in love with Harry but my, he was a looker.”

MY OLDEST FRIEND – MY, WHAT A LOOKER HE WAS

School friend Sir Ian McKellen

“Having met at school in south Lancashire, there was no one who knew Harry longer in this room.

“We were fortunate to go to a school where whatever you wanted to do – whether that was playing clarinet, in the arts or on the sports field, they backed you with whatever you wanted to do. It gave us enormous self-confidence.

“What a looker he was! I don’t remember falling in love with Harry but my, he was a looker.”

Outgoing University of Sussex vice-chancellor Michael Farthing

“We became great friends during our time at Sussex, where he also became a great adviser to me.

“He persuaded me of the importance of bringing scientific disciplines together.”

Dr Jonathan Hare, British physicist who worked with Harry Kroto at the University of Sussex for his PhD

“It has been a pleasure to have been on this journey with Harry. He was a great friend and a brilliant scientist who believed wholeheartedly in creative freedom.”

Professor Simon Balm of Santa Monica College, Los Angeles, USA

“He was such an inspiring individual. I knew immediately after meeting him that this was who I wanted to work with. Harry was an amazing mentor and friend. He was always available to speak to and his students adored him. He was an inspiration.

“His humour and generosity lives on in everything I do as an academic and educator and for that I am truly grateful.”

Professor Danko Bosanac, of the Ruder Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia

“Harry was a great speaker. He knew how to convey detailed knowledge to people at all levels.”

Professor Nicole Grobert, of University of Oxford

“The infectious enthusiasm that Harry had, you could see through his body language.

“He was gripping. He liked to dance and move around – you could see his passion.

“When I think of Harry I think of a few words: humour, a visionary, respect, curiosity and diversity.”

MOLECULAR REVELATION THAT MANY EXPERTS DOUBTED

SIR Harry Kroto won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, jointly with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley, for their discovery in 1985 of fullerenes – new forms of carbon where atoms are arranged in the form of a ball.

Sir Harry and the two US scientists teamed up to laser vaporise carbon in laboratory experiments designed to simulate the chemistry of stars and interstellar space.

Their experiments appeared to indicate they had made an unexpected discovery of a molecular species comprising 60 carbon atoms.

Carbon had long been known to exist as diamond or graphite but carbon as a small molecule was completely new thinking.

Hexagons Sir Harry drew on his artistic side and knowledge of graphic design to propose that C60 was made up of a mixture of pentagons and hexagons – a structure known in ancient times and in modern times in the humble football.

Initially though nobody could prove it and the scientific community was openly sceptical.

Sir Harry, with his student Jonathan Hare, examined the “unpromising smudge” left after an electric arc was struck between two graphite rods and from this they were able to extract C60 with benzene as a beautiful purple solution.

Even at that time, Harry predicted that the ion of C60 should be observable in the diffuse interstellar bands in space and famously said that the many who disagreed with him were “just wrong” – a belief that was proved by experiments in Switzerland only last year.

It was this discovery that carbon can exist as tiny spherical molecules which led to several scientific breakthroughs and sparked the nanotech revolution.