Philip Locke, Vargas from `Thunderball`, dies aged 76

27-Apr-2004 • Actor News

Philip Locke, the actor who has died aged 76, was a veteran of numerous productions at the Royal Court, the National Theatre and with the RSC, although he was better known to the film-going public as Vargas, the silent assassin in Thunderball (1965) who ends up impaled on a palm tree by 007's speargun [Daily Telegraph].

Tall, gaunt, balding and intense-looking, Locke was noted for his portrayals of nervy fanatics: Vargas (unlike his nemesis) "does not drink, does not smoke and does not make love". But Locke was capable in genres from classical tragedy to light comedy.

Philip Locke was born on March 29 1928 at St Marylebone, London, and educated at St Marylebone Central School. After training at Rada, he made his professional debut with Oldham Rep in 1954 as Feste in Twelfth Night, before touring with the Old Vic as Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

From the late 1950s, he became a member of the ensemble at the Royal Court, taking mostly minor parts. After the late 1960s he made frequent appearances at the National Theatre and with the RSC, playing numerous Shakespearean roles, including Boyet in Love's Labour's Lost; Jacques in As You Like It (both 1969); Lord Stanley in Richard III (1970); Lepidus in Antony and Cleopatra (1973); Casca in Julius Caesar (1973); Junius Brutus in Coriolanus (1973); Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida (1976); and Kent in King Lear (1986).

Locke was particularly effective as a gentle and over-anxious Quince in Peter Brook's Midsummer Night's Dream (1970), and as a bespectacled, academic Horatio in Hamlet (Old Vic, 1975), for which he won a Plays and Players award for best supporting actor.

Other stage roles included the schoolmaster Medvedenko in Tony Richardson's 1964 staging of The Seagull at the Queen's Theatre; the English chaplain John de Stogumber in Shaw's Saint Joan (Olivier, 1984); Mycetes, King of Persia in Tamburlaine the Great (Olivier, 1976); the Colonel in Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Royal Festival Hall, 1977); and - his own favourite role - Gaev in The Cherry Orchard (Olivier, 1979).

In Gorky's Enemies (Aldwych, 1971), Locke played the well-meaning but ineffectual head of a family firm at odds with his hard-line partner (Patrick Stewart) over how to deal with a workers' revolt. In Thomas Bernhard's poetic farce The Force of Habit (Lyttleton, 1976), he played a circus ringmaster struggling against fearful odds to bully his little troupe into playing the Trout Quintet.

His performance as Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes (Aldwych, 1974) won Locke a Tony award nomination. The Telegraph's critic noted that the vigorous booing that greeted the character's downfall was "a fine tribute from a grateful audience".

Locke's first film appearance was in a Rank B-movie, Cloak without Dagger, in 1955; in addition to Thunderball, he appeared in several Edgar Wallace productions, worked with Ronnie Barker in a film version of Porridge (1979), played Vogel in Escape to Athena (1979) and a prime minister on board a doomed ship in Fellini's E La Nave Va (And The Ship Sailed On, 1983).

Locke's television credits included many appearances on ABC's Armchair Theatre, and he played the villain in numerous crime dramas, including The Avengers; Inspector Morse; Poirot; Bergerac; Minder; and The Ruth Rendell Mysteries. He was an android in a Dr Who series, and the magical sage Arnold of Todi in the BBC Television version of Masefield's Box of Delights (1984).

A private man who spent much of his time in his pyjamas, Locke died on April 19; he is survived by his companion Michael Ivan.

Thanks to `Allen` for the alert.