Michael Gough

Michael Gough

Francis Michael Gough ( GOF; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was an English character actor who made over 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 in all four films of the Tim Burton/ Joel Schumacher Batman tetralogy. He would appear in three more Burton films: in 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 titular villain in The Celestial Toymaker (1966) and as Councillor Hedin in Arc of Infinity (1983), and in a memorable episode of The Avengers as the automation-obsessed, wheelchair-bound 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 funniest West End roles was as Baron von Epp in the 1983 revival of John Osborne's A Patriot for Me.

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