Robin Bailey

William Henry Mettam Bailey, known professionally as Robin Bailey, was born on 5 October 1919 in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, the son of china and glass merchant George Henry Bailey and Thirza Ann Bailey, née Mettam. He was educated at Henry Mellish Grammar School in Nottingham. Bailey died on 14 January 1999 in Wandsworth, London, of respiratory failure, at the age of 79.

Before entering the professional theatre, Bailey worked for several years at the Post Office and subsequently at the War Office during the 1930s, where he encountered amateur dramatics. His stage debut came in 1938 in a production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. He went on to act in repertory at Newcastle upon Tyne before joining the Army in 1940. Following his demobilization in 1944, he resumed his stage career at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham. Bailey made his London stage debut in 1947, playing Ludovico in Othello at the Piccadilly Theatre, and made his first television appearance in 1950. His first film credit came in 1946, in School for Secrets, directed by Peter Ustinov.

In 1959, the Australian theatrical producers J.C. Williamson Limited engaged Bailey to play Professor Henry Higgins in their production of the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady. The production was a duplicate of the New York City staging. Bailey, like Rex Harrison who had originated the role in London and New York, was not a singer, but handled the semi-spoken songs in a comparable manner. The production proved enormously successful, eventually requiring a second company so that it could run simultaneously in Melbourne while moving to Sydney, where the Empire Theatre was rebuilt and renamed Her Majesty's Theatre for the occasion. Between the two companies, the Williamson production toured Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand for more than five years, becoming the highest-grossing Australian theatrical production of all time by number of paid admissions.

Bailey's Broadway career comprised two productions, both of which were unsuccessful. In 1963 he appeared in the musical Jennie, and in 1964 he appeared in the comedy A Severed Head. The role of Martin Lynch-Gibbon in A Severed Head was one he had originated in London, and he also performed it in Australia following his success there with My Fair Lady.

On British television, Bailey became widely recognized for two recurring roles in particular. He portrayed Uncle Mort in the BBC series I Didn't Know You Cared, an adaptation of Peter Tinniswood's stories about an extended Yorkshire family, which ran from 1975 to 1979. He also collaborated with Tinniswood on the television and radio series Tales from a Long Room, in which he played the Brigadier, an eccentric cricket enthusiast. Bailey was additionally known for playing Mr Justice Graves in Thames Television's Rumpole of the Bailey, a role he held from 1987 to 1992. In 1983, following the death of Arthur Lowe, Bailey took over the title role in Roy Clarke's BBC sitcom Potter, appearing in the third series of the show alongside John Barron. Other television credits included the civil servant Grainger in The Power Game in 1966, Mr. Hale in the 1975 BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, Gerald Maitland in an episode of Upstairs Downstairs in 1974, Neville Chamberlain in The Gathering Storm, Prime Minister Gresham in The Pallisers, Charters in the 1985 miniseries Charters and Caldicott opposite Michael Aldridge, and Sir Leicester Dedlock in the 1985 BBC adaptation of Bleak House. He appeared in Dalziel and Pascoe in 1996 and made his final television appearance in Kavanagh QC in 1997. Bailey was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1982, when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Beyond stage and screen, Bailey worked extensively as a voice actor for BBC Radio and recorded numerous audiobooks, reading works by Agatha Christie, Catherine Aird, Nevil Shute, and Ruth Rendell.

Bailey married Patricia Mary Weekes on 6 September 1941. She died on 2 October 1993. The couple had three children, including a son, Simon Bailey, who served as Keeper of the Archives at Oxford University.