ROY DOTRICE

(26 May 1923 - 16 October 2017)

Essentially a character actor but a great one, Roy Dotrice, who has died at the age of 94, was mainly a man of the theatre, although he appeared in a lot of television and radio and also in films. Born in Guernsey, he joined the RAF at the age of 16 and was shot down during World War II and taken prisoner in Germany, where he started to perform. Back home he joined Rada and then played in rep around the UK, eventually becoming a member of the Stratford Memorial Company, specialising in older character parts. He will be remembered for his one-man show as the 17th-century diarist John Evelyn, a decrepit gossip and, as Dotrice played him, a hilariously memorable figure. He played this all over the world for a record-breaking 1700 plus performances. He also had one-man shows on Churchill, Dickens, Lincoln and Will Rogers. He began in TV in 1957, while his film career started in 1960 with Joseph Losey’s The Criminal, and then came The Heroes of Telemark, A Twist of Sand, Lock Up Your Daughters, The Buttercup Chain, Nicholas and Alexandra, Tales from the Crypt, Saturn 3 (dubbing for Harvey Keitel), Amadeus (as Leopold Mozart), Swimming With Sharks, The Scarlet Letter, These Foolish Things and others, but he appeared more on television, in The Wars of the Roses, Jackanory, Misleading Cases (Bafta award, 1967), Clochemerle, Dickens of London, Shaka Zulu, Murder, She Wrote, Life Begins and latterly Game of Thrones (as Hallyne). He married Kay Newman in 1947 and they had three daughters, Michele, Karen and Yvette, all actresses. Roy Dotrice received the OBE in 2008.

MICHAEL DARVELL