David Bailie obit

 

David Bailie has died

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Bailie was born in Springs, South Africa in December 1937, and went to boarding school in Swaziland, before emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with his family in 1952. His first acting experience soon after school in 1955 was an amateur production of Doctor in the House, which persuaded him he wanted to be an actor. After leaving school he worked in a bank and then for Central African Airlines. In 1958, he made his first trip from Rhodesia to Britain.

In 1960 he moved to Britain and landed his first small role in the film Flame in the Streets (1961) and then played one of the bell boys in Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (1961) with Stella Adler playing Madame Rospettle. He then bluffed his way into weekly repertory in Barrow-in-Furness as juvenile lead – terrified all the while that he would be exposed as totally inexperienced.

Recognizing the need for training, he auditioned three times for a bursary to the RADA—each time being accepted only as a fee-paying student, which he couldn't afford. He finally sent for the last of his standby money (£200) he had left in Rhodesia and paid for the first term (1963). At the end of term he persuaded John Fernald to allow him free tuition for the next two years.

Terry Hands was also a student at the same time, but had left a little earlier than Bailie and formed the Everyman Theatre with Peter James in Liverpool. On leaving RADA Bailie was invited to join the Everyman in 1964. Amongst other roles he played "Tolen" in The Knack..., "Becket" in Murder in the Cathedral, "Dion" in The Great God Brown, "MacDuff" in Macbeth and "Lucky" in Waiting for Godot.

After a year there, he came back to London and auditioned for and was accepted by Sir Laurence Olivier joining the National Theatre. He played minor roles and also understudied Olivier in Love for Love.

Terry Hands, who had by now joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford-upon-Avon (and later became its artistic director), invited Bailie to join them as an associate artist (1965). There he portrayed "Florizel" opposite Judi Dench's "Perdita" in The Winter's Tale along with "Valentine" in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, "The Bastard" in King John, "Kozanka" in The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising and "Leslie" in The Madness of Lady Bright.

During the early 1970s he worked with Stomu Yamashta at his Red Buddha Theatre. He was cast as the lead in a show called Raindog, requiring him to do everything from singing and dancing, to performing Martial Arts and gymnastics – which he frankly admits was a demand too far and when Yamashta offered him a paltry sum for performing the opportunity was there to depart which he did. He was then cast by Michael E. Briant in 1976 to play the part of the villain "Dask" in the Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death. He also played in a number of other series prominent at the time.

For personal reasons Bailie then had a long recess in his acting career. Between 1980 and 1989 he ran a furniture-making business. In 1990 he closed that down and returned to acting, having in fact to virtually restart his career. It didn't help that at exactly this point he had to have a cancer removed from his lip, which required learning to speak again. Whilst awaiting work in the acting field he busied himself with CAD design, self-training and writing computer programs and also doing health and safety work in the building industry.

In the mid-1990s after playing alongside Brian Glover in The Canterbury Tales he made a comeback in the film business as "Skewer" in Cutthroat Island (1995), then played an English Judge in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), and also "The Engineer" in Gladiator (2000).

Bailie's best-known work in film is the role of "Cotton", a mute pirate who has his tongue cut out, so he trained his parrot, also named Cotton, to speak on his behalf, though it cannot say more than stock phrases. Bailie first appears as Cotton in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) as one of the pirates Jack Sparrow chooses in Tortuga. He is one of the Black Pearl crewmembers to survive the Kraken attack in the sequel Dead Man's Chest (2006), and also played Cotton in the third instalment: At World's End (2007).

Bailie reprised his Doctor Who role as Dask in the Kaldor City audio drama series.] He was also involved in Big Finish Productions audio dramas playing the "Celestial Toymaker".

Bailie also worked as a professional photographer, portraiture and landscapes being his speciality.

He established a YouTube channel, mdebailes, where he uploaded readings and performance excerpts.

Bailie died in March 2021 at the age of 83.

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1961      Flame in the Streets                        Uncredited

1968      All's Well That Ends Well               Morgan, a soldier             TV film

1972      Henry VIII and His Six Wives         Norris   

1973      The Creeping Flesh          Young Doctor    

Son of Dracula   Chauffeur           

Wipers Three     Lieutenant General Smuts            TV film

1975      Legend of the Werewolf                Boulon

1977      Golden Rendezvous        Younger terrorist in car Uncredited

1979      The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry Surnamed Hotspur         Second Carrier TV film

1995      Cutthroat Island                Dawg's Pirate    

1999      The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc                English Judge    

2000      Gladiator             Engineer             

2003      Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl      Cotton

2005      Starfly   Commander / Doctor      Short

2006      Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest          Cotton

2007      Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End               

Eddie Proctor     Eddie Proctor     Short

The Comebacks                Prisoner              

2009      Shadows in the Wind      Mr. Behrman     Short

2011      Pirates of the Caribbean: Tales of the Code – Wedlocked                Cotton Short

Tribe      Wentzelow        

2013      Traveller             

2014      October 1            Ackerman           

Artificio Conceal               Vitruvius              Short

2015      The Timber         Sheriff Snow      

2017      The Beyond        Professor Jakob Brukiehm           

2018      The House That Jack Built             S.P.        

2019      In the Trap          Father Andrew

2020      Darbar Drug Overlord    Uncredited

 

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1966      Ransom for a Pretty Girl                Colonel Caron    Mini-series

1971      The Fenn Street Gang     Student                Episode: "Leave It to Me, Darling"

1972      The Visitors         New porter         Mini-series

Adam Smith        Reverend Douglas Black                2 episodes

1973      The Regiment    Commandant De Jong    Episode: "Ambush"

1974      Play for Today    Daniel Tasker     Episode: "The Lonely Man's Lover"

1975      Churchill's People            Bertram               Episode: "Silver Giant, Wooden Dwarf"

Softly, Softly: Taskforce Scooby Episode: "Whose Side Are You On?"

BBC Play of the Month   Sergeant Davidson           Episode: "The Little Minister"

Marcade              Episode: "Love's Labour's Lost"

1976      Plays for Britain                 Disc jockey          Episode: "Hitting Town"

1977      Warship               Panmuir               Episode: "Wind Song"

Doctor Who        Dask      Episode: "The Robots of Death"

1978      Blake's 7              Chevner               Episode: "Project Avalon"

The Onedin Line               Branigan              Episode: "The Reverend's Daughter"

1997      The New Adventures of Robin Hood         Outlaw Mills       Episode: "Outlaw Express"

2001      Attila the Hun    Shaman                Mini-series

2009      Doctor Who: The Sixth Doctor Adventures            The Celestial Toymaker Episode: "The Nightmare Fair"

2012      Sinbad Brother Angelico              Episode: "Fiend or Friend?"