Age: 89
male
Brian Blessed OBE (born 9 October 1936) is an English actor. He is known for his distinctive bushy beard, booming voice, and exuberant personality and performances. He portrayed PC "Fancy" Smith in Z-Cars; Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of I, Claudius; King Richard IV in the first series of Blackadder; Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon; Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in the 1981 original London production of Cats at the New London Theatre; Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, in Henry V; Boss Nass in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; and the voice of Clayton and the Tarzan yell in Disney's Tarzan. In 2016, Blessed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts and charity. Blessed was born on 9 October 1936 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of William Blessed, a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and cricketer for the Yorkshire second team, and Hilda (née Wall). He had a brother Alan, seven years younger, and the pair "went everywhere together" when they were growing up. Alan Blessed died from leukaemia aged 52; their mother died aged 87, and their father died aged 99. Blessed's great-great-grandfather, Jabez Blessed, was the father of 13 children and worked as a china and glass dealer in Brigg, Lincolnshire; many of Blessed's relatives hail from Brigg. Blessed went to Bolton on Dearne Secondary Modern School, and completed his national service in the RAF, in Bicester, before enrolling at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1956.
Brian Blessed
William Clayton
for William Clayton in Disney's House of Mouse Revisited
Suggested by disneymaster1901
From the Universe that brought you DuckTales, the basic premise of the show focuses on Mickey Mouse and his friends operating a dinner theater club in downtown ToonTown. Considered a popular venue by the residents, the club is frequented by a host of character from Disney animated properties – every character from cartoons and films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios are featured in the episodes, with the exception of those made after 2001–2003 (such as Lilo & Stitch) and Dinosaur due to being CGI. Such characters mostly appear as paying guests of the club, with a few voiced in episodes depending on the scripts provided to voice actors, although a number sometimes operate as performers for the club. The animated series is more notable for including many relatively obscure and otherwise rarely used Disney characters, often with speaking parts for the very first time - for example, Li'l Bad Wolf and April, May and June, who had appeared very often in Disney comic books but never before in an animated cartoon, finally made their animated debuts on House of Mouse. The show also featured some cameos by characters created for other television cartoons and theme park attractions, but these appearances were few and far between.
