Michael Gough

Francis Michael Gough ( GOF; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was a British character actor who made more than 150 film and television appearances. He is known for his roles in the Hammer horror films from 1958, with his first role as Sir Arthur Holmwood in Dracula, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth from 1989 to 1997 in the four Batman films directed by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher. He appeared in three more Burton films: Sleepy Hollow, voicing Elder Gutknecht in Corpse Bride and the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland. Gough also appeared in popular British television shows, including Doctor Who (as the villain in The Celestial Toymaker (1966) and as Councillor Hedin in Arc of Infinity (1983)), and in an episode of The Avengers as the automation-obsessed wheelchair user Dr. Armstrong in "The Cybernauts" (1965). In 1956 he received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. At the National Theatre in London, Gough excelled as a comedian, playing a resigned and rueful parent in Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (1977). When the comedy transferred to Broadway in 1978 he won a Tony Award. One of Gough's most well-received West End roles was as Baron von Epp in the 1983 revival of John Osborne's A Patriot for Me.