DAVID OGDEN STIERS

Written by Michael Darvell
 

(31 October 1942 - 3 March 2018)

David Ogden Stiers

The Oregon-born actor David Ogden Stiers, who has died aged 75 from bladder cancer, was a man of many talents. Known chiefly for his role as Major Winchester in the long-running television series M*A*S*H, he was very much more than just that. He was at high school with the celebrated film critic Roger Ebert and at the early age of twenty he joined the Santa Clara Shakespeare Festival for seven years, then studied acting, singing and conducting at Juilliard and appeared on Broadway in The Magic Show. More stage work followed. He became a drama teacher and principal guest conductor of a local Oregon orchestra. His first film role was as the voice of an announcer in George Lucas’s THX 1138 in 1971. Voice-over work was to follow him for much of his career: his voice was used in many Disney animated features, including Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as video games. TV work included Kojak, Charlie’s Angels, Rhoda, Perry Mason, Matlock, and Murder, She Wrote, as well as M*A*S*H from 1977 to 1983, plus umpteen TV movies. For the cinema he was cast by Woody Allen in Another Woman, Shadows and Fog, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Other films he graced included Oh, God!, The Cheap Detective, Magic, Harry’s War, The Man With One Red Shoe, The Accidental Tourist, Doc Hollywood etc. His last work (in 2017) was in the film Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time and the TV movie The Joneses Unplugged. He fathered a son in the 1960s but came out as gay in 2009.

MICHAEL DARVELL

 
Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

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