Charles Gray

• Name — Charles Gray • Birth Name — Donald Marshall Gray • Born — 29 August 1928 • Birthplace — Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, UK • Died — 7 March 2000 • Place of death — London, England, UK • Other Names — Oliver Gray • Occupation — * Actor • Years Active — 1957–1998

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.

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, Gray 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. 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.

Gray portrayed Mycroft Holmes in both the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) and opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes 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 because Edward Hardwicke, who played Dr. John 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 Julius 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' larynx was removed to combat throat cancer.

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

• Highway Patrol (1956) as Steve • 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 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 Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex • When Eight Bells Toll (1971) as Sir Anthony Skouras (uncredited voice) • Diamonds Are Forever (1971) as Ernst Stavro Blofeld • Theatre of Blood (1973) as Solomon Psaltery (uncredited voice) • Tales That Witness Madness (1973) as Dr. Nicholas (uncredited voice) • On the Game (1974) as Narrator (voice) • The Beast Must Die (1974) as Arthur Bennington • Fall of Eagles (1974) as Mikhail Rodzianko • The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) as The Criminologist • Seven Nights in Japan (1976) as Henry Hollander • The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) as Mycroft Holmes • Three Dangerous Ladies as Mr. Santander • Silver Bears (1978) as Charles Cook • Richard II (1978) as Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York • The Legacy (1978) as Karl Liebnecht • The Mirror Crack'd (1980) as Bates • 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) as Bart Bellow • Harry and Harriet (1990) as Satan • Firestar: First Contact (1991) as Commodore Vandross • The Beano Video (1993) as Narrator #4 (voice) • The Tichborne Claimant (1998) as Arundell