Hamilton Camp

Hamilton Camp, born Robin S. Camp on October 30, 1934, in London, England, was a British-born actor, singer, and songwriter who built a career spanning more than five decades in music, theater, film, and television. During World War II, he was evacuated to the United States as a child alongside his mother and sister, and the family ultimately settled there permanently. He began working as a child actor in films and onstage at the age of 12, in 1946, performing initially under the names Robin Camp and Bob Camp. After joining the Subud spiritual movement, he adopted the name Hamilton, and for a period billed himself as Hamid Hamilton Camp.

Camp's musical career took shape in 1960 when he made his debut as a folk singer at the Newport Folk Festival. The following year, he released his first recording, a collaborative album with Bob Gibson titled Bob Gibson & Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn. A gospel song he recorded with Gibson, "You Can Tell the World," appeared as the opening track on Simon & Garfunkel's debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Camp is perhaps most widely recognized among songwriters for composing "Pride of Man" in 1964, a song subsequently recorded by Quicksilver Messenger Service, Gram Parsons, and Gordon Lightfoot, who included it on his first album. As a solo recording artist, Camp charted a minor hit with "Here's to You" in 1968, which reached number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was produced and arranged by Felix Pappalardi, known for his work with Cream and the band Mountain.

Camp made his Broadway debut in 1964 in the musical revue The Committee, launching a period of stage work that continued through 1971. He also appeared on Broadway in Kelly and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. In 1969, Camp formed a group called The True Brethren with Waqidi Falicoff, Raphael Grinage, and Loren Pickford, and the four later composed the incidental music for the Broadway production Paul Sills' Story Theatre, which received two Tony Awards and a nomination for best show at the 1971 ceremonies. His Broadway credits also include Ovid's Metamorphoses.

During the period billed as Hamid Hamilton Camp, he led a group called Skymonters, which released an album on Elektra in 1973. The band featured Lewis Arquette on vocals and comedy monologues, Lewis Ross on lead guitar, Jakub Ander on bass, and Rusdi Lane as percussionist and mime. Camp also performed with the Chicago comedy troupe The Second City and the San Francisco satirical comedy troupe the Committee.

His television work was extensive. He held a supporting role on the sitcom He & She, starring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, which aired for one season in 1967–68. He guest-starred on a wide range of series including The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., The Monkees, The Rat Patrol, M*A*S*H, Starsky and Hutch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Soap, Cheers, The Twilight Zone, Three's Company, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, in which he played the older H. G. Wells. He appeared in two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the Ferengi character Leck, and in one episode of Star Trek: Voyager as a Malon freighter pilot. In 1977, he appeared in three episodes of The Feather and Father Gang. During the 1978 opening season of WKRP in Cincinnati, he guest-starred as Del Murdock in the fifth episode and later returned to the series as Johnny Fever's ex-wife's new fiancé. In 1980, he appeared as a semi-regular on Too Close for Comfort, playing Arthur Wainwright, and he also appeared on the Fox sitcom Titus as Merritt, the alcoholic father of Erin Fitzpatrick. He played Bart Furley, brother of Don Knotts' character Ralph Furley, in the Three's Company episode "Furley vs. Furley."

In film, Camp played Warren Beatty's valet Bentley in the 1978 production Heaven Can Wait. He provided voice work for the 1978 film Starcrash, in which he voiced the robot policeman "L," and for Peter Bogdanovich's 1976 film Nickelodeon. In animation, he voiced Fenton Crackshell, also known as GizmoDuck, on the Disney animated series DuckTales and its spinoff Darkwing Duck, and became Disney's voice of Merlin following the death of Karl Swenson. For Hanna-Barbera, he voiced Greedy Smurf and Harmony Smurf on The Smurfs and its television specials, Count Dracula in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, Turk Tarpit in The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, Mr. Gruber in Paddington Bear, The Grand Dozer on Potsworth & Co., Barney Rubble as a child in The Flintstone Kids, and various villains on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. He also voiced Professor Moriarty in the English dub of the anime series Sherlock Hound. In video games, he voiced the Prophet of Mercy in the 2004 release Halo 2 and played old Malcolm Corley in the LucasArts graphic adventure Full Throttle.

Camp married Rasjadah Lisa Jovita Cisz in 1961, and the couple had six children together. His wife died in 2002. Among his final projects were the film Hard Four, completed in early 2005, and a musical album titled Sweet Joy, produced by James Lee Stanley and finished shortly before his death. Camp died of a heart attack on October 2, 2005, at the age of 70, survived by his six children and thirteen grandchildren.