Michael Gough

Francis Michael Gough (/ɡɒf/ GOF; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was a British actor who made more than 150 film and television appearances. He is known for his roles in the Hammer horror films from 1958, with his first role as Sir Arthur Holmwood in Dracula, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth from 1989 to 1997 in the four Batman films directed by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher. He appeared in three more Burton films: Sleepy Hollow, voicing Elder Gutknecht in Corpse Bride and the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland.

Gough also appeared in popular British television shows, including Doctor Who (as the villain in The Celestial Toymaker (1966) and as Councillor Hedin in Arc of Infinity (1983)), and in an episode of The Avengers as the automation-obsessed wheelchair user Dr. Armstrong in "The Cybernauts" (1965). In 1956 he received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.

At the National Theatre in London Gough excelled as a comedian, playing a resigned and rueful parent in Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (1977). When the comedy transferred to Broadway in 1978 he won a Tony Award. One of Gough's most well-received West End roles was as Baron von Epp in the 1983 revival of John Osborne's A Patriot for Me.

Gough was born in Kuala Lumpur, Federated Malay States (now Malaysia) on 23 November 1916, the son of English parents Francis Berkeley Gough, a rubber planter, and Frances Atkins (née Bailie). Gough was educated at Rose Hill School, Tunbridge Wells, and at Durham School. He moved on to Wye Agricultural College, which he left to go to The Old Vic. During World War II, Gough was a conscientious objector, like his friend Frith Banbury, although he was obliged to serve in the Non-Combatant Corps, a member of 6 Northern Company, in Liverpool.

In 1948, Gough made his film debut in Blanche Fury and thereafter appeared extensively on British television. In 1955, he portrayed one of the two murderers (the other was Michael Ripper) who kill the Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud), as well as the Princes in the Tower in Laurence Olivier's Richard III.

Gough became known for his appearances in horror films; following his performance as Arthur Holmwood in Hammer's original Dracula (1958), his horror roles mainly saw him feature as slimy villains, notably in Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), Konga (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Black Zoo (1963), Trog (1970), The Corpse (1971), Horror Hospital (1973) and Norman J. Warren's cheaply made Satanism shocker Satan's Slave (1976). He also spoofed his horror persona in What a Carve Up! (1961) as a sinister butler. He also appeared in the comedy film Top Secret! (1984), alongside Val Kilmer (the latter's first feature film), with whom he would also work later in the film Batman Forever.

Gough guest-starred in Doctor Who, as the titular villain in The Celestial Toymaker (1966) and also as Councillor Hedin in Arc of Infinity (1983). He was set to reprise his role as the Toymaker in the proposed 23rd-season story The Nightmare Fair, but the season and the serial were cancelled and never produced. He also played the automation-obsessed wheelchair user Dr. Armstrong in "The Cybernauts", one of the best-remembered episodes of The Avengers (1965), returning the following season as the Russian spymaster Nutski in "The Correct Way to Kill". He was introduced in the first-season episode "Maximum Security" of Colditz as Major "Willi" Schaeffer, the alcoholic second-in-command of the Kommandant (Bernard Hepton). In the Ian Curteis television play Suez 1956 (1979), he portrayed Prime Minister Anthony Eden. In 1981, he was reunited with Laurence Olivier in Granada Television's Brideshead Revisited, portraying the doctor to Olivier's dying Lord Marchmain. He played Mikhel, a slippery assistant to a slain British spy opposite Alec Guinness in the television adaptation of John le Carré's Smiley's People the following year. Gough also appeared in The Citadel (1983) as Sir Jenner Halliday, in 1985's Out of Africa as Lord Delamere and as the fictional deposed KGB spymaster Andrei Zorin in Sleepers.

Later in his career, Gough played Alfred Pennyworth in Tim Burton's blockbuster films Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992). He returned to the role in Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997) for Joel Schumacher. Gough was one of two actors to have appeared in the four Batman films in the Burton/Schumacher series—the other being Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon. He also voiced the character in two BBC radio dramas—Batman: The Lazarus Syndrome (1989) and the 1994 adaptation of Batman: Knightfall. Gough reprised his role in a 1989 advertisement for Diet Coke, specially shot footage used for the original 1992 Warner Bros. Movie World Batman Adventure Ride, and in 2000, six television commercials for the OnStar automobile tracking system (informing Batman of the system's installation in the Batmobile).