Roger Delgado (actor)
Created | Updated Mar 30, 2004
Introduction
In the 1950's and 60's actor Roger Delgado was familiar to British TV viewers as playing sinister foreign villains. Yet behind the scenes he was cherished by actors and production crew alike as a charming and dear friend.
Early Years
Many would be surprised to learn that Roger Delgado was actually a Cockney, born on 1 March 1918 in Whitechapel, London within the sound of Bow Bells. His distinctive foreign looks came as a result of having a French mother and Spanish father, who christened him Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto as a reminder of his heritage.
He was educated at the Cardinal Vaughn School and The London School of Economics. On leaving school his first job was in a bank, but after a year and a half he quit for the theatre, joing a rep company in Leicester.
When war broke out in 1939 he was initially turned down by the forces because of his mixed parentage. But he eventually joined The Royal Leicester Regiment and saw active service in Europe and the Far East.
An Actor's Life
Roger returned to acting in 1947, when he joined York Rep Company (where whilst portraying a Gestapo Officer he met an actor called Barry Letts) In 1950 he joined the BBC Drama Rep, where he worked on a number of radio broadcasts putting his voice to good use both as an actor and narrator.
His varied theatre career included such productions as The Cactus Flower, The Power and The Glory, Enrico and he even made a pantomime appearance in 1962 called Little Old King Cole with Charlie Drake.
Roger appeared in numerous films and tv serials in the 1950's and 60's. His first film appearance was in 1953 in The Captain's Paradise, in which he portrayed a Kalikan policeman opposite Alec Guiness. Playing foreigners soon became a speciality for Roger. At one point in his career he portrayed no less than six Middle Eastern characters in the space of just six months, unfortunately finding himself the victim of the dreaded type casting which affects so many actors.
On television he began to work his way through the cast lists of a number of action adventure series, nearly always playing the suave and sinister villain in such shows as Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Champions, Man in a Suitcase, Danger Man and The Saint.
A Masterful Role
By 1970 the actor Barry Letts had become producer of Doctor Who. He and Terrance Dicks had decided to create a new villain to oppose The Doctor. The character was called The Master, a renegade Timelord like the Doctor, but utterly evil. Roger was the only actor who was considered for the role.
Roger made his first appearance as The Master on 2 January 1971, in the first of a four part story called 'Terror of The Autons'. Sporting a goatee beard, dressed in a dark suit with a Nehru style collar and with a widow's peak added to his high hairline he looked every inch the satanic enemy the producers had envisaged. Such was the success of the character's creation that he was asked to appear in every subequent Doctor Who story that year, and he made regular appearances for the next two series.
All of the regular cast in the series had become good friends with Roger. The irony of the Doctor and his best enemy enjoying a strong friendship was inescapable, yet, as Jon Pertwee noted in 1987, Roger's public and private personas couldn't have been more different.
Inevitably, the part of the Master began to become a little repetitive and Roger was finding it hard to find other work because other producers and directors thought he was a permanent member of the Doctor Who cast so he asked to leave. He would therefore be written out of the series at the end of the 1974 season in a story provisionally entitled The Final Game, which would be due to begin production in the Autumn of 1973 seeing the Master being blowen up perhaps to save the Doctors life.
In the Summer of 1973 Roger travelled to Turkey to work on a Turkish/French comedy film called Bell Tibet, delighted at the prospect of changing his villainous image. Usually when he was on location work he would always be accompanied by his wife of 17 years Kismet. However this was the one occasion when she wasn't with him which was probably a blessing as she would have probably been killed too. On 18 June 1973 Roger was collected from the airport in Turkey by a taxi to be taken to a location just outside Neveshir. En route the driver took a mountain road, losing control of the car on a bend plunging the car into a ravine. Roger and a film technician were killed in the accident. Roger was only 55 years old when he met this tragic end.
Further Reading
A complete list of Roger Delgado's screen works can be found at the Internet Movie Database [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0217069]
Read all about the continuing adventures of Doctor Who at the BBC Cult Site [hhttp//www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho]
In the 1950's and 60's actor Roger Delgado was familiar to British TV viewers as playing sinister foreign villains. Yet behind the scenes he was cherished by actors and production crew alike as a charming and dear friend.
Early Years
Many would be surprised to learn that Roger Delgado was actually a Cockney, born on 1 March 1918 in Whitechapel, London within the sound of Bow Bells. His distinctive foreign looks came as a result of having a French mother and Spanish father, who christened him Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto as a reminder of his heritage.
He was educated at the Cardinal Vaughn School and The London School of Economics. On leaving school his first job was in a bank, but after a year and a half he quit for the theatre, joing a rep company in Leicester.
When war broke out in 1939 he was initially turned down by the forces because of his mixed parentage. But he eventually joined The Royal Leicester Regiment and saw active service in Europe and the Far East.
An Actor's Life
Roger returned to acting in 1947, when he joined York Rep Company (where whilst portraying a Gestapo Officer he met an actor called Barry Letts) In 1950 he joined the BBC Drama Rep, where he worked on a number of radio broadcasts putting his voice to good use both as an actor and narrator.
His varied theatre career included such productions as The Cactus Flower, The Power and The Glory, Enrico and he even made a pantomime appearance in 1962 called Little Old King Cole with Charlie Drake.
Roger appeared in numerous films and tv serials in the 1950's and 60's. His first film appearance was in 1953 in The Captain's Paradise, in which he portrayed a Kalikan policeman opposite Alec Guiness. Playing foreigners soon became a speciality for Roger. At one point in his career he portrayed no less than six Middle Eastern characters in the space of just six months, unfortunately finding himself the victim of the dreaded type casting which affects so many actors.
On television he began to work his way through the cast lists of a number of action adventure series, nearly always playing the suave and sinister villain in such shows as Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Champions, Man in a Suitcase, Danger Man and The Saint.
A Masterful Role
By 1970 the actor Barry Letts had become producer of Doctor Who. He and Terrance Dicks had decided to create a new villain to oppose The Doctor. The character was called The Master, a renegade Timelord like the Doctor, but utterly evil. Roger was the only actor who was considered for the role.
Roger made his first appearance as The Master on 2 January 1971, in the first of a four part story called 'Terror of The Autons'. Sporting a goatee beard, dressed in a dark suit with a Nehru style collar and with a widow's peak added to his high hairline he looked every inch the satanic enemy the producers had envisaged. Such was the success of the character's creation that he was asked to appear in every subequent Doctor Who story that year, and he made regular appearances for the next two series.
All of the regular cast in the series had become good friends with Roger. The irony of the Doctor and his best enemy enjoying a strong friendship was inescapable, yet, as Jon Pertwee noted in 1987, Roger's public and private personas couldn't have been more different.
Inevitably, the part of the Master began to become a little repetitive and Roger was finding it hard to find other work because other producers and directors thought he was a permanent member of the Doctor Who cast so he asked to leave. He would therefore be written out of the series at the end of the 1974 season in a story provisionally entitled The Final Game, which would be due to begin production in the Autumn of 1973 seeing the Master being blowen up perhaps to save the Doctors life.
In the Summer of 1973 Roger travelled to Turkey to work on a Turkish/French comedy film called Bell Tibet, delighted at the prospect of changing his villainous image. Usually when he was on location work he would always be accompanied by his wife of 17 years Kismet. However this was the one occasion when she wasn't with him which was probably a blessing as she would have probably been killed too. On 18 June 1973 Roger was collected from the airport in Turkey by a taxi to be taken to a location just outside Neveshir. En route the driver took a mountain road, losing control of the car on a bend plunging the car into a ravine. Roger and a film technician were killed in the accident. Roger was only 55 years old when he met this tragic end.
Further Reading
A complete list of Roger Delgado's screen works can be found at the Internet Movie Database [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0217069]
Read all about the continuing adventures of Doctor Who at the BBC Cult Site [hhttp//www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho]
