Bruce Purchase

Bruce Purchase was a New Zealand-born character actor with a deep voice. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England and, after repertory work, became a founder member of the National Theatre Company, appearing there and at the Mermaid Theatre in Shakespearean roles. His Balthasar in Much Ado About Nothing (1965) and Sebastian in The Tempest (1970) were well received. He also played Doolittle on a European tour of My Fair Lady. On 1970s television, he appeared in I, Claudius (1976), Rumpole of the Bailey (1978), Blakes 7 (1978) and the Doctor Who episode The Pirate Planet, as a cybernetically enhanced pirate captain with a robotic parrot. He was the Duke of Buckingham in The First Churchills (1969) and the Earl of Northumberland in a BBC production of Henry IV. Purchase alternated television and stage work, and in 2007 he appeared as a cardinal in The Last Confession. He died in 2008.