David Weatherley

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David John Weatherley (born 1 March 1939) is a British actor known for his roles as Spencer the butler and the voice of Benglo the Fearcat in Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive, and Barliman Butterbur in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

[edit] Biography

Weatherly was born in London. He pursued his education to 'O' Level CGE at The Quintin School in Regent Street London before departing England and spending five years abroad in the Canadian Army, reaching the rank of Provost (Military Police) Sergeant. His ambitions to pursue a career in the New Zealand Army were destroyed when he crashed his BSA Golden Flash 650cc motorcycle shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 1961.

David's thoughts went from the military to acting, and became a professional actor. His professional stage debut was in the 1964 Downstage (Wellington) production of Oh! What a Lovely War. It wasn't long before he was touring New Zealand in '...Lovely War', followed by another tour with the RSC's Production of The Comedy of Errors, directed by Clifford Williams an Gareth Morgan.

Since those early beginnings, David has made a multitude of appearances both on stage and screen, a large portion of which were made during his twenty years at the Mercury Theatre in Auckland.

Some of the most noteworthy of the 120 Mercury productions he has been involved with include: Man of la Mancha (Don Quixote), Sgt Musgrave's Dance (Musgrave), Henry IV (Falstaff), Peer Gynt (Peer), The Ruling Class (13th & 14th Earls), Equus (Dysart), Cabaret (Schultz).

David has showed his versatility as an actor by featuring on television in roles in such diverse roles as: Bulbous Cauliflower in Worzel Gummidge with Jon Pertwee; Sir Jasper Waterlow in The Potato Factory and Ernie Jacobs(The Landlord fron Hell) in Home and Away. Not forgetting the ubiquitous Cookie Bear, an iconic NZ advertising figure. In Radio Drama he was involved in many many hundreds of productions rangeing from Inspector Alleyn in Ngaio Marsh's detective series to Othello.

In one 14 month stint at an Auckland radio station he recorded over 2,500 thirty second commercial tracks. Through his career as an actor David has seen a large amount of Australia and New Zealand touring with various productions: Evita as Peron: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Brisbane, Sydney and Honolulu. Chess as Col Alexander Molokov KGB: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Melbourne. Ken Hill's original The Phantom of the Opera as Mephistopheles and The Persian Prince: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin. Hal Prince's production of 'Showboat' as understudy to Capt Andy, and Ike Vallon: Sydney

Some of David's many honours and titles include: Past Master Lodge North Harbour; First Principal - Waitemata Chapter, Royal Arch; District Grand Director of Ceremonies - Order of The Secret Monitor; Past Grand Herald - United Great Priory in New Zealand, Knights Templar; Knight Commander - Order of St. Stanislas (Poland); Commander - Order of St. Lazarus (Jerusalem).