Actor Bernard Horsfall has passed away today.
He is best known to Doctor Who fans for many of his appearances in the show. He first acted against the second Doctor Patrick Troughton in the story the mind Robber where he played Gulliver when the Tardis crew are trapped in the Land of Fiction. Interestingly, all his lines were taken from the actual book. He would then become one of the first Time Lords (above) in Troughton’s finale The War Games – it was he who exiled the Doctor to Earth and determined his new appearance.
He would later add the Daleks to his list as he played Taron in Planet of the Daleks. But undoubtedly his best known appearance was in the classic The Deadly Assassin where he played another Time Lord, Goth, who allied himself with the decaying Master.
In that story he battled the fourth Doctor in the Matrix, the place where all Time Lord minds go after they die. He hunts the Doctor down and tries to drown him in a cliffhanger that brought many complaints especially from Mary Whitehouse.
Bernard had a long and distinguished career appearing alongside James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and alongside Jeremy Brett in Sherlock Holmes. His movie credits include Braveheart and Ghandi.
Rest in peace, sir
Irwin Fletcher
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