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David Graham
David Graham
	Graham in 2016
Born	David Michael Graham; 11 July 1925; London, England
Died	20 September 2024 (aged 99)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1952–2024
Known for	Doctor Who; Thunderbirds; Peppa Pig; Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom; Thunderbirds Are Go;

David Michael Graham (11 July 1925 – 20 September 2024) was an English actor. He was best known for voicing the Daleks in Doctor Who, Gordon Tracy, Brains, Aloysius Parker and Kyrano in Thunderbirds, and Grandpa Pig in Peppa Pig.

Life and career

Graham was born in London on 11 July 1925.^[1]^[2] His sister had married a G.I. and had moved to the United States, and his uncle had run away there, and so he became an actor after leaving his Orthodox Jewish household. He trained in New York City, at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre with Sanford Meisner,^[3] following service in the Royal Air Force as a radar mechanic.^[4]

Graham returned to England and began his theatre career, his breakout role being as Givola in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, alongside Leonard Rossiter. A friend of his, actor Christopher Benjamin, recommended the role to him. He was then recommended by director Michael Blakemore to audition for Laurence Olivier's theatre company,^[3] eventually appearing alongside him in Saturday Sunday Monday, using an Italian accent.^[1]

While playing characters in the TV series Private Investigator^[3]^[5] in 1958, Graham met writer and producer Gerry Anderson, who was planning his first puppet productions. Graham said that he could pull off accents well, which led to his first voiceover role in Four Feather Falls, as Grandpa Twink, whom he based on Walter Brennan.^[2] He subsequently voiced Dr. Beaker, Zarin and Mitch the Monkey in Supercar, Mat Matic and Lieutenant Ninety in Fireball XL5 and various guest characters in Stingray. Graham also played Johnny in Crossroads to Crime, a live-action film Anderson directed.

In 1963, he became the voice of the Daleks in Doctor Who, alongside Peter Hawkins, who devised the way they spoke.^[6] He believed Hawkins would always play superior and higher-pitched Daleks, while he voiced with a lower-pitch. He voiced the Daleks in all four of their major First Doctor era appearances, as well as two 1960s feature films: Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., departing due to other commitments,^[2] although he and Hawkins remained lifelong friends.^[7] Graham also voiced the Mechonoids and played the onscreen role of Charlie in The Gunfighters. He returned to his role as the voice of the Daleks in 2023, when he recorded new lines for that year's official colourised recut of the 1963 serial The Daleks for the show's 60th anniversary.^[8]

In 1965, Graham became the voices of Gordon Tracy, Brains, Aloysius Parker and Kyrano in Thunderbirds, as well as its film sequels: Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6. He did not believe Brains had a stutter, claiming that he was instead trying to find the words to explain his latest ideas excitedly. He based the voice of Parker on a waiter at the King's Arms pub in Cookham, and he and Ray Barrett shared many of the guest villains. Although he was not highly paid for production, the many repeats earned him a lot more,^[3] and Parker became Anderson's favourite voice.^[9]

Between 1975 and 1977, Graham was part of the Radio Drama Company.^[10] In 1979, he played Professor Kerensky in the Doctor Who story City of Death. He, later, played the role of Big Brother in the "1984" television Super Bowl advert to introduce the Apple Macintosh computer,^[11] before reuniting with Hawkins and his wife, Rosemary Miller, to provide voices together in the English dub of German animated film Stowaways on the Ark. In 2004, Graham became the voice of Grandpa Pig in Peppa Pig, having known creator Mark Baker from when he was younger.^[12] The following year^[13] he played Albert Einstein in a Horizon docudrama, for which he was very proud that the BBC would select him to play the lead role.^[3]

In 2009,^[14] Graham began playing Edward Elgar in Stirring the Spirit, for which he thoroughly researched the composer,^[3] and he reprised the role many times over the next decade. From 2015 to 2020, he reprised his role as Parker in Thunderbirds Are Go, a reboot of the original series. Although Kayvan Novak took over as Brains, Graham had wanted to reprise that role as well. Most of his dialogue was recorded with Rosamund Pike, who played Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward.^[15]

In April 2021, Graham announced his retirement from his Thunderbirds characters.^[16] In December, actor George Layton, a longtime friend of Graham's, announced on Twitter that Graham had suffered a stroke six months earlier and was unable to leave his home in London. However, Layton stated that Graham was recovering by performing voice-overs,^[17] and had since conducted interviews from his home.^[18]

Graham died on 20 September 2024, at the age of 99.^[19]^[20] Despite this, a representative of the Peppa Pig brand confirmed that further episodes featuring his voice would continue to be released until 2027.^[21]

Filmography

Film


Year	Title	Role	Ref.
1960	Crossroads to Crime	Johnny	^[20]
1965	Dr. Who and the Daleks	Dalek voices	^[6]
1966	Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.	Dalek voices	^[6]
1966	Thunderbirds Are Go	Gordon Tracy, Brains, Aloysius Parker	^[2]^[9]
1968	Thunderbird 6	Gordon Tracy, Brains, Aloysius Parker	^[2]^[9]
2009	The End	Ernest Samson	^[22]
2015	Peppa Pig: The Golden Boots	Grandpa Pig, Mr. Zebra	^[19]

Television


Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
1957	O.S.S.	Pilot	Episode 14 "Operation Yo-Yo"	^[23]
1960	Four Feather Falls	Grandpa Twink, Fernando	39 episodes	^[2]^[20]
1961–1962	Supercar	Dr. Beaker, Zarin, Mitch the Monkey		^[2]^[20]
1962–1963	Fireball XL5	Mat Matic, Lieutenant Ninety		^[2]^[20]
1963	The Avengers	Producer	Episode: "Man in the Mirror"	^[24]
1963–1966, 1979	Doctor Who	Dalek voices, Mechonoid voices, Charlie, Professor Kerensky	35 episodes	^[2]^[19]
1964–1965	Stingray	Various	39 episodes	^[25]
1965	Danger Man	Detective	Episode 17: "The Affair at Castelevara"	^[26]
1965–1966	Thunderbirds	Gordon Tracy, Brains, Parker, Kyrano	32 episodes	^[2]^[19]
1969	The Secret Service	King of Muldovia, Air Traffic Controller, Lord Edward Hazelwell	2 episodes, uncredited	^[20]
1970–1971	Timeslip	2957	7 episodes	^[20]
1990–1991	Moomin	Snork	English version, 77 episodes	^[20]
1992–1994	So Haunt Me	Mr. Bloom	13 episodes	^[20]
2004– 2027	Peppa Pig	Grandpa Pig, Mr. Zebra, Father Christmas	97 episodes, posthumous 2024-2027	^[2]^[19]
2005	Horizon	Albert Einstein	Episode: "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony"	^[25]
2009–2012	Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom	Wise Old Elf, Mr. Gnome	47 episodes	^[2]^[19]
2015–2020	Thunderbirds Are Go	Parker, Vic, Malloy	40 episodes	^[9]