| Ed Bishop | |
|---|---|
| Born | George Victor Bishop June 11, 1932 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Died | June 8, 2005 (aged 72) Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England |
| Occupation | Film, radio, stage, TV actor |
Ed Bishop (June 11, 1932 - June 8, 2005) was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.
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Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland. At the time of discharge, his rank was Corporal.
After graduating in Theatre Arts from Boston University, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to study for two years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1959 and almost immediately found work in the British theatre and film industries. He adopted the first name "Edward" at this time for professional reasons. His first Broadway appearance was as Villebosse in David Merrick's production of Jean Anouilh's The Rehearsal in 1963, though he returned to Britain in 1964.
Bishop made his film acting debut in a small role in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Lolita (as an ambulance driver). In 1963 he played an American astronaut going to the moon in the movie The Mouse on the Moon. He had small roles in the James Bond films You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever, plus a cameo scene in The Bedford Incident. He also appeared in 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which he played the Captain of the Aries 1B space-station-to-moon shuttle. The role initially featured dialogue, though this was later cut from his scenes.
Bishop has appeared in various film and television projects created by producer Gerry Anderson, and perhaps his most prominent screen role of all was as Commander Ed Straker in Anderson's science fiction series, UFO, which was produced in 1969-1970 and broadcast during 1970-1971. Prior to this, he had appeared in Anderson's science fiction film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun and provided the voice of Captain Blue for Anderson's 1967 Supermarionation puppet series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.
For his role in UFO, Bishop had his dark hair dyed blonde, though he eventually started wearing a blonde wig instead. As this was before the advent of Unisex hairdressing salons, prior to wearing a wig Bishop had had to resort to having the dyeing process done at ladies hairdressers. Bishop kept one of the wigs he wore in UFO as a souvenir and was also given the Certina wristwatch he wore on the show, and before his death, said that he planned to pass it on to his eldest grandson.[1] Bishop was the only cast member of UFO to appear in every episode of the series.
In later years, appeared in films such as Saturn 3 (though was uncredited), Twilight's Last Gleaming, and Whoops Apocalypse (he also appeared in the TV series version). Bishop also provided vocal work for the 1974 animated TV series of Star Trek and appeared in the final episode of the British WWII POW drama Colditz, Bishop appears as Lt. Col. Harrity. In the 1980s, he made several appearances on The Kenny Everett Television Show and had a role in the children's television series Chocky's Children.
On radio, in 1977-78 he played the private eye Philip Marlowe in six adaptations of Raymond Chandler's stories for the BBC, the last of them, Farewell, My Lovely, produced almost a decade after the others, as the rights had previously been unavailable. In 1981, Bishop performed a vocal narrative on the song "Norman Bates" by the British synthpop band Landscape.
Bishop continued to act on film, TV and radio, usually in British and European productions, and was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions. Bishop and fellow Anderson-actor Shane Rimmer (another American actor who often worked in the UK) often joked about how often their professional paths crossed and termed themselves "Rent-a yank". They appeared together as NASA operatives in the opening of You Only Live Twice and as USN sailors in The Bedford Incident. In 1989, Bishop was reunited with Rimmer and another Anderson actor, Matt Zimmerman, in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study In Scarlet. Bishop and Rimmer also toured together in theatre shows including Death of a Salesman in the 1990s and also appeared in the BBC drama/documentary Hiroshima (2005), one of Bishop's last TV projects.
In 2000, Bishop briefly reprised the role of Captain Blue in a trailer for the new Captain Scarlet series. He did not, however, reprise the role for the actual series, which would not debut until five years later.
In 2002, Bishop recorded a commentary for the DVD release of UFO. In 2003, he performed in the Doctor Who audio drama, Full Fathom Five, produced by Big Finish Productions.
He was also politically active, participating in the March 2004 British protest against the Iraq war. Bishop had already showed his disapproval of the military-industrial complex some years earlier, in a notable act of political theatre: in 1993 he gatecrashed an arms-trade fair held in Aldershot, Hampshire whilst dressed to resemble Augusto Pinochet.[2] During the Aldershot protest he met photographer Jane Skinner, who later became his third wife. His widow requested that instead of sending flowers to Bishop's funeral, donations should instead be made to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.
Ed Bishop was married three times:
Bishop died five days after the death of one of his UFO co-stars, Michael Billington. Bishop succumbed to a chest infection contracted while undergoing treatment for an undisclosed blood disease.[3] He is buried in the churchyard of the Parish Church of Saint Lawrence in Napton, Warwickshire. His grey sandstone tombstone has a peace symbol prominently engraved on it. Its design is very similar to the one situated two metres on the right, which marks the grave of his son Daniel (16 May 1967 - 18 January 1988), who was killed in a car accident in Cumbria.
Bishop's epitaph reads: From This Valley They Say You Are Going. We Shall Miss Your Bright Eyes And Your Smile.
His life and work was honoured at the British Academy Television Awards in May 2006. He is survived by his widow and three daughters from his second marriage: Georgina, Jessica and Serina.
"Ed Bishop is one of the most talented people I've ever worked with. And my only sadness was that that he didn't go on to become an international star, I would have loved him to have, perhaps been James Bond" - Gerry Anderson - UFO producer.[4]
