Mark Wing-Davey

Mark Wing-Davey (born 30 November 1948) is a British actor and director. He portrayed Zaphod Beeblebrox in the radio and television versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Mark Wing-Davey
Wing-Davey in 2012
Born (1948-11-30) 30 November 1948[1]
London, England
EducationWoolverstone Hall School
Alma materCambridge University
Occupations
  • Actor
  • director
Years active1974–2013
Spouse
​
​
(m. 2002; died 2023)​
Children2
Parent

Early and personal life

The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing,[2] Wing-Davey attended Woolverstone Hall School in Suffolk before studying English at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Footlights between 1967 and 1970.[3][4]

In 1973, while working as a theatre company member in Sheffield, he met actress Anita Carey. The two began living together the following year after they appeared in a production together. They got married in 2002. The pair had two children together.[5]

Career

He had a featured role in the 1976 miniseries The Glittering Prizes.[6] This role was later cited by Geoffrey Perkins[7] as the likely reason for his being cast in arguably his most memorable role, that of the two-headed Galactic President, Zaphod Beeblebrox, in the radio and TV versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, written by Douglas Adams. He played a barrister in some episodes of the ITV television series Crown Court, King Henry V in Episode 3 of James Burke's Connections,[8] a record company executive in the film Breaking Glass (1980) and an accountant in Absolutely Fabulous.[9]

In the 1983 television production of Alan Bennett's An Englishman Abroad, Wing-Davey played Prince Hamlet in the re-enactment of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre's 1958 tour of Hamlet to Moscow.[10] His theatre credits include James Stock's Star-Gazy Pie and Sauerkraut (Royal Court Theatre, 1995) and Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, for which he won an Obie award.[11] He was the first Artistic Director of The Actors Centre, London.

In 2003, he returned to the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox for the Above the Title production of the Hitchhiker's Guide Tertiary to Quintessential Phase radio dramas for BBC Radio 4. More recently he has provided the voice of Judge Ghis in the English version of Final Fantasy XII.[12] Wing-Davey directed the off-Broadway production of Unconditional by Brett C. Leonard at The Public Theater. It was put up by Philip Seymour Hoffman's theater group, LAByrinth Theater Company, of which he is a member. It opened in February 2008.

In May 2008, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts announced that Wing-Davey had been named Chairman of, and arts professor in, the School's Graduate Acting Program.[13] He reprised the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox in 2012 for a live tour of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Also in 2012, Wing-Davey directed the world premiere of Brett C. Leonard's "Ninth and Joanie" in a LAByrinth Theater Company production. In 2013, he directed William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

References
  1. Mark Wing-Davey profile, researcha.com; accessed 25 November 2015.
  2. Profile, bbc.co.uk; accessed 25 November 2015.
  3. The Making of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  4. 'Cambridge tripos: results in Economics and English,' The Times, 1 July 1970.
  5. Hayward, Anthony (6 August 2023). "Anita Carey obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  6. The Glittering Prizes details, Internet Movie Database; accessed 25 November 2015.
  7. The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts. Douglas Adams, edited by Geoffrey Perkins. First US Printing, Harmony Books, New York, NY, USA. 1985. ISBN 0-517-55950-1
  8. Connections details, imdb.com; accessed 25 November 2015.
  9. Profile, bbc.co.uk; accessed 25 November 2015.
  10. "An Englishman Abroad (1983)". BFI. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 14 August 2023.
  11. Mark Wing-Davey profile, americanrepertorytheater.org; accessed 25 November 2015.
  12. "Mark Wing Davey (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  13. "NYU Tisch School of the Arts Appoints Mark Wing-Davey Chair of Graduate Acting Program" (Press release). New York University. 12 May 2008. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
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