Roy Dotrice

Roy Dotrice was a British stage and screen actor born on 26 May 1923 in Guernsey, Channel Islands, who died on 16 October 2017 in London at the age of 94. During the Second World War he served as a wireless operator and air gunner with the Royal Air Force, and after his Avro Manchester R5840 of No. 106 Squadron was shot down in 1942, he spent three years as a prisoner of war in a German camp before his release in 1945. His acting career began that same year in a revue called Back Home, performed by former prisoners of war in aid of the Red Cross.

Dotrice became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early 1960s, taking on roles including Caliban in The Tempest opposite Tom Fleming's Prospero under Peter Brook's direction, John of Gaunt and Hotspur opposite David Warner's Richard II, Justice Shallow opposite Hugh Griffith as Falstaff in Henry IV, and Edward IV in the Hall/Barton-adapted Shakespeare cycle The Wars of the Roses, which was later broadcast by the BBC. His stage work extended to solo performance, most notably the one-man play Brief Lives, in which he portrayed the antiquarian John Aubrey. Devised and directed by Patrick Garland, the production premiered in 1967 at the Hampstead Theatre in London before moving to the Criterion Theatre in the West End in 1968, where it ran for 400 performances and subsequently transferred to the Mayfair Theatre. The play reached Broadway and, combined with extensive international touring, earned Dotrice a Guinness World Record for the greatest number of solo performances at 1,782. He revived the role in 2008 under Garland's direction once more. His other solo productions included Mister Lincoln in 1979 and Churchill in 1982, both premiering at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Dotrice's Broadway career spanned from 1967 to 2000 and encompassed productions including The Homecoming, Hay Fever, Kingdoms, and A Life. In 1984 he appeared opposite Rosemary Harris in a production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever. His final Broadway credit, a 2000 revival of Eugene O'Neill's drama A Moon for the Misbegotten, brought him both the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.

On screen, Dotrice played Charles Dickens in the 1976 television miniseries Dickens of London and appeared as Albert Haddock in the BBC television adaptation of Misleading Cases in 1971 and as the Curé Ponosse in the BBC2 adaptation of Clochemerle in 1972. He portrayed Commissioner Simmonds in two episodes of the 1970s science-fiction series Space: 1999 and played Leopold Mozart in the 1984 film Amadeus. In the 1980s he took the recurring role of Father in the television series Beauty and the Beast, followed by the role of Father Gary Barrett in the 1990s series Picket Fences. He appeared in three episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as Zeus in 1998 and played Roger Wyndam-Pryce in an episode of Angel. In 2012 he joined the cast of the HBO series Game of Thrones as Wisdom Hallyne the Pyromancer, appearing in the episodes The Ghost of Harrenhal and Blackwater.

Dotrice was also a prolific audiobook narrator, recording each installment of George R. R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2011 he received the Guinness World Record for the most character voices by an individual in an audiobook, for his recording of A Game of Thrones, which contained 224 distinct voices. He additionally narrated storybook adaptations for Disney Records, including The Little Mermaid and Pooh's Heffalump Movie, work for which he received a Grammy Award nomination. On BBC Radio 4 in 1982, he read G. B. Edwards's novel The Book of Ebenezer Le Page across twenty-eight fifteen-minute installments on Woman's Hour, and he later performed a stage adaptation of the same work at the Theatre Royal Lincoln.

Dotrice was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year Honours. He had been married to actress Kay Newman from 1947 until her death in 2007, and the couple had three daughters — Michele, Yvette, and Karen — each of whom pursued acting careers. He was the father-in-law of actors Edward Woodward and Alex Hyde-White.