Charles Gray (actor)


Donald Marshall Gray, known professionally as Charles Gray, was an English actor. Gray was best known for playing Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, Dikko Henderson in You Only Live Twice, Mycroft Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and as Judge Oliver Wright in the 1981 sequel Shock Treatment.
Fandom jamesbond:Charles_Gray

Early life

Donald Marshall Gray was born on 29 August 1928 in Bournemouth, Hampshire to surveyor Donald Gray, who had served as a captain in the Royal Engineers, and Maude Elizabeth. Gray attended Bournemouth School alongside Benny Hill, whose school had been evacuated to the same buildings, during the Second World War. Some of his friends remember that his bedroom walls were plastered with pictures of film stars.

Stage career

By his mid-twenties, Gray had left his first job as a clerk for an estate agent to become an actor. He began his stage experience at the theatre club next to the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth, where he was a last-minute cast replacement in The Beaux' Stratagem. Gray surprised everyone, including himself, with the quality of his performance. He later made his first professional stage appearance under his given name, Donald Gray, as Charles the Wrestler in Roger Atkins' production of As You Like It. He moved away from Bournemouth in the late 1950s, but his parents remained at the family home until their deaths.
On becoming a professional actor he had to change his name, as there was already an actor named Donald Gray. He chose Charles Gray partly because Charles was the name of his maternal grandfather, partly because he had a close friend named Charles, and partly because he thought it sounded nice. For his first appearance on Broadway, in the 1961 musical Kean, he went under the name Oliver Gray.
Charles Gray distinguished himself in theatrical roles, in the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, London, at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-Upon-Avon and at the Old Vic. He received his vocal training at the RSC and became noted for his imposing presence.

Film and television

During the 1960s, Gray established himself as a successful character actor and made many appearances on British television. Work in this period included Danger Man, with Patrick McGoohan, and Maigret. Gray also appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in the film version of The Entertainer as a reporter.
His breakthrough year was 1967, when he starred with Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in the Second World War murder-mystery film The Night of the Generals. The same year, he played Dikko Henderson, a British intelligence officer assigned to their Embassy in Tokyo, in the Bond film You Only Live Twice. Four years later, he appeared as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, both films starring Sean Connery as James Bond.
Gray's most prolific work as an actor was between 1968 and 1979, when he appeared in more than forty major film and television productions. From this period, he is perhaps best known for portraying the Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a similar character, Judge Oliver Wright, in its sequel Shock Treatment. This more expansive role is said to be the same character. In 1973, he played Lord Seacroft in the television series The Upper Crusts opposite Margaret Leighton, and in 1983, he starred alongside Coral Browne and Alan Bates in the award-winning made-for-TV film An Englishman Abroad. In 1985, he starred in an episode of the BBC-TV detective series Bergerac, entitled "What Dreams May Come?". Other well-known film work includes The Devil Rides Out, Mosquito Squadron, Cromwell and The Beast Must Die. In 1991, Gray co-starred with Oliver Tobias in the science-fiction film Firestar – First Contact for Ice International Films.

Later work

Gray portrayed Mycroft Holmes in both the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock in four episodes of the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In two episodes of the final Brett series, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, he had leading roles as Mycroft, the first because Edward Hardwicke, who played Doctor Watson, was busy on another project and the second as a result of Brett's illness.
Other television appearances included roles in Dennis Potter's Blackeyes, The New Statesman, Thriller, Upstairs, Downstairs, Bergerac, Porterhouse Blue plus a range of Shakespearean roles, such as Caesar in Julius Caesar and Pandarus in Troilus and Cressida. He dubbed for Jack Hawkins in the films Theatre of Blood, When Eight Bells Toll, Tales That Witness Madness and others after Hawkins's larynx was removed to combat throat cancer.

Death

Gray died of cancer at a London hospital, on 7 March 2000, at the age of 71.

Selected filmography

I Accuse! as Capt. BrossardHeart of a Child as Fritz HeissOfficial Detective Episode: "Extortion" as King The Desperate Man as DawsonFollow a Star as Taciturn Man at Party Tommy the Toreador as GomezThe Entertainer as ColumnistMan in the Moon as LeoMasquerade as BensonThe Night of the Generals as General Herbert von Seidlitz-GablerYou Only Live Twice as Dikko HendersonThe Man Outside as Charles GriddonThe Secret War of Harry Frigg as Gen. Adrian Cox-RobertsThe Devil Rides Out as MocataThe Nine Ages of Nakedness as Narrator The File of the Golden Goose as The OwlMosquito Squadron as Air Commodore HuffordThe Executioner as Vaughan JonesCromwell as The Earl of EssexWhen Eight Bells Toll as Sir Anthony Skouras Diamonds Are Forever as Ernst Stavro Blofeld Theatre of Blood as Solomon Psaltery Tales That Witness Madness as Jack Hawkins Voice Double On the Game as Narrator The Beast Must Die as BenningtonFall of Eagles as Mikhail RodziankoThe Rocky Horror Picture Show as The Criminologist – An ExpertSeven Nights in Japan as Henry HollanderThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution as Mycroft HolmesThree Dangerous Ladies as Mr. Santander Silver Bears as Charles CookRichard II as Duke of YorkThe Legacy as Karl LiebnechtThe Mirror Crack'd as Bates, The ButlerTicket to Heaven as MusicianShock Treatment as Judge Oliver WrightCharles & Diana: A Royal Love Story as John Spencer, 8th Earl SpencerThe Jigsaw Man as Sir James ChorleyThe Gourmet as Manley Kingston
  • Bergerac Bart Bellow as SatanFirestar: First Contact as Commodore VandrossThe Beano Video as Narrator #4 The Tichborne Claimant as Arundell