Charles Gray

Donald Marshall Gray (29 August 1928 – 7 March 2000), 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.

Early life Donald Marshall Gray was born on 29 August 1928 in Bournemouth, Hampshire (present-day Dorset) to surveyor Donald Gray (died 1975), who had served as a captain in the Royal Engineers, and Maude Elizabeth (née Marshall). 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 (1960) 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. in four episodes of the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984). 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,

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

Selected filmography

Highway Patrol (1956) as Steve, the pilot I Accuse! (1958) as Capt. Brossard Heart of a Child (1958) as Fritz Heiss Official Detective (1958) Episode: "Extortion" as King The Desperate Man (1959) as Dawson Follow a Star (1959) as Taciturn Man at Party (uncredited) Tommy the Toreador (1959) as Gomez The Entertainer (1960) as Columnist Man in the Moon (1960) as Leo Masquerade (1965) as Benson The Night of the Generals (1967) as General Herbert von Seidlitz-Gabler You Only Live Twice (1967) as Dikko Henderson The Man Outside (1967) as Charles Griddon The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968) as Gen. Adrian Cox-Roberts The Devil Rides Out (1968) as Mocata The Nine Ages of Nakedness (1969) as Narrator (voice) The File of the Golden Goose (1969) as The Owl Mosquito Squadron (1969) as Air Commodore Hufford The Executioner (1970) as Vaughan Jones Cromwell (1970) as The Earl of Essex When Eight Bells Toll (1971) as Sir Anthony Skouras (voice, uncredited) Diamonds Are Forever (1971) as Ernst Stavro Blofeld Theatre of Blood (1973) as Solomon Psaltery (voice, uncredited) Tales That Witness Madness (1973) as Jack Hawkins Voice Double (voice, uncredited) On the Game (1974) as Narrator (voice) The Beast Must Die (1974) as Bennington Fall of Eagles (1974) as Mikhail Rodzianko The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) as The Criminologist – An Expert Seven Nights in Japan (1976) as Henry Hollander The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) as Mycroft Holmes Three Dangerous Ladies as Mr. Santander (segment: The Island) Silver Bears (1978) as Charles Cook Richard II (1978) as Duke of York The Legacy (1978) as Karl Liebnecht The Mirror Crack'd (1980) as Bates, The Butler Ticket to Heaven (1981) as Musician Shock Treatment (1981) as Judge Oliver Wright Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story (1982) as John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer The Jigsaw Man (1983) as Sir James Chorley The Gourmet (1984) as Manley Kingston Bergerac (1985) Bart Bellow (1990) as Satan Firestar: First Contact (1991) as Commodore Vandross The Beano Video (1993) as Narrator #4 (voice) The Tichborne Claimant (1998) as Arundell