Ed Bishop

George Victor Bishop 11 June 1932 8 June 2005 known professionally as Ed Bishop or sometimes Edward Bishop was an American actor He was known for playing Commander Ed Straker in UFO Captain Blue in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and for voicing Philip Marlowe in a series of BBC Radio adaptations of the Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler Bishop made his film acting debut as an ambulance driver in Stanley Kubricks 1962 movie Lolita He played an American astronaut going to the Moon in the film The Mouse on the Moon 1963 and also appeared in The Bedford Incident 1965 and Battle Beneath the Earth 1967 He had small speaking roles in the James Bond films You Only Live Twice 1967 and Diamonds Are Forever 1971 but was not included in the film credits for either He appeared in a second Kubrick film 2001 A Space Odyssey 1968 in which he played the Captain of the Aries 1B Moon shuttle The role initially featured dialogue but this was later cut from his scenes Bishop appeared in various film and television projects created by producer Gerry Anderson He provided narration in addition to the voice of Captain Blue for Andersons Supermarionation puppet series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 1967 and appeared in Andersons sciencefiction film Doppelgänger 1969 Perhaps his most prominent screen role was that of Commander Ed Straker in Andersons sciencefiction series UFO 197071 Bishops dark hair was initially dyed blond for the role though he eventually wore a blond wig instead In later years he appeared in films such as Twilights Last Gleaming Saturn 3 Silver Dream Racer and The Lords of Discipline He provided vocal work for the 1974 animated TV series of Star Trek and appeared as Lieutenant Colonel Harrity in the final episode of the British World War II prisonerofwar drama Colditz In the 1980s he made several appearances on The Kenny Everett Television Show Whoops Apocalypse he also appeared in the subsequent film and had a role in the childrens television series Chockys Children He continued to act on film TV and radio usually in British and European productions and was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions He and fellow Anderson actor Shane Rimmer a Canadian actor who often worked in the UK joked about how frequently their professional paths crossed and termed themselves Rentayank They appeared together as NASA operatives in the opening of You Only Live Twice and as United States Navy sailors in The Bedford Incident as well as the 1983 film of the Harold Robbins novel The Lonely Lady In 1989 Bishop was reunited with Rimmer and another Anderson actor Matt Zimmerman in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles A Study in Scarlet He and Rimmer also toured together in theatre shows including Death of a Salesman in the 1990s and they both appeared in the BBC dramadocumentary Hiroshima 2005 one of Bishops last TV projects