Philip Voss

Philip James Voss (20 August 1936 – 13 November 2020) was a British stage, radio, film and television actor.

Voss was born in Leicester, the elder son of James Voss, a pharmacist, and his wife, Viola (née Walmsley). He had a younger brother, John. When he and his family moved to the village of Wollaton, near Nottingham, he attended Nottingham High Pavement Grammar School. He joined a local amateur theatre and, after national service with the RAF, trained for the stage at RADA.

Voss played roles in the Doctor Who serials Marco Polo and The Dominators ,^[1] Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, the 1981 Lord of the Rings radio series,^[2] Indian Summer, an RSC 1996 revival of The White Devil , The Brides in the Bath , two plays in the Arkangel Shakespeare and a small role in an audio dramatisation of an Anton Chekhov short story.^[3] He also played recurring roles in the TV series Fish as Ivan Vishnevski and Vicious as Ian McKellen's cynical brother Mason Thornhill.

Other credits include a stint at the London Shakespeare Workout, two roles for the Shared Experience Company (in Three Sisters and The Seagull ), and playing Serebryakov in a West End rendition of Anton Chekhov's The Wood Daemon. At the RSC during the 1990s, he played Menenius in Coriolanus , Sir Epicure Mammon in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist , Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida , Malvolio in Twelfth Night , Shylock in The Merchant of Venice , and Prospero in The Tempest .

From the 1970s onwards, Voss lived in Bushey, Hertfordshire, with his partner, writer John Peacock. They entered into a civil partnership in 2006, and remained together until Peacock’s death in 2017. Voss died from cancer and complications of COVID-19 in Watford, Hertfordshire, on 13 November 2020, aged 84. He was survived by his brother.^[4]

• Ivanov as Shabelsky, Director Trevor Nunn, National Theatre
• Love's Labour Lost as Boyet, Director Trevor Nunn, National Theatre
• As You Like It as Jaques, Director Peter Hall, Theatre Royal Bath/USA
• The Royal Hunt of the Sun as Miguel Estete, National Theatre
• Uncle Vanya as Alexandr Vladmiirovich Serebryakov, Director Hugh Fraser, Wilton's Music Hall
• The Giant as Lodovico/Soderini, Director Gregory Doran, Hampstead Theatre
• The Circle as Lord Porteous, Director Joanthan Church, Chichester Festival Theatre
• Apologia as Hugh, Director Josie Rourke, Bush Theatre
• Canary (2010) as Older Tom, Director Hettie MacDonald, Liverpool Everyman

• Aspects of Love as Sir George, BBC Radio
• The Lord of the Rings as the Lord of the Nazgûl, BBC Radio
• Tulips in Winter as Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel, BBC Radio

• Philip Voss home Page
• Philip Voss at IMDb
• Philip Voss discography at Discogs

• 1936 births
• 2020 deaths
• 20th-century English male actors
• 21st-century English male actors
• Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• English gay actors
• Deaths from cancer in England
• Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England
• English male film actors
• English male radio actors
• English male stage actors
• English male television actors
• People educated at Nottingham High Pavement Grammar School
• Actors from Bushey
• Male actors from Leicester
• Royal Shakespeare Company members
• 20th-century English LGBTQ people
• 21st-century English LGBTQ people
• Male actors from Hertfordshire
• Male actors from Nottingham

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• EngvarB from October 2013
• Use dmy dates from May 2024
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