Roger Delgado

Roger Delgado

Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto (1 March 1918 – 18 June 1973) was an English actor, best known for his role as the Master in Doctor Who.

He was born in Whitechapel, in the East End of London—Delgado often remarked to Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee, a close friend, that this made him a true Cockney, as he was born within the sound of the Bow bells—although his mother was Belgian and his father Spanish. He attended Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, a Roman Catholic secondary school in Holland Park.

Delgado worked extensively on the British stage, and on TV, film and radio. He appeared in the 1955 BBC Television serial Quatermass II, had a role in the Powell and Pressburger wartime drama Battle of the River Plate (1956), and came to wide popular attention in Britain when he played the duplicitous Spanish envoy Mendoza in the ITC Entertainment series Sir Francis Drake (1961–62), after which he was much in demand; an 'in-joke' in the 1971 Doctor Who story Colony in Space refers to that role: the Brigadier tells the Doctor not to worry — the suspected sighting of the Master was only the Spanish Ambassador! Delgado was frequently cast as a villain, appearing in many noted British action-adventure TV series by ITC, including The Champions (1969), Danger Man (1961), The Saint (1962, 1966), and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969). He made a total of sixteen guest appearances in ITC shows — the most of any actor — with his last completed role being ITC's The Zoo Gang shown in 1974. He also appeared in The Avengers (1961, 1969), The Power Game (1966) and Crossfire (1967). In film, he appeared alongside Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in The Road to Hong Kong.

He began work on Doctor Who in late 1970, his first broadcast appearance being in the January 1971 adventure Terror of the Autons. He subsequently reprised the role of the Master in many of the Third Doctor serials, including The Mind of Evil, The Claws of Axos, Colony in Space, The Dæmons, The Sea Devils, The Time Monster and Frontier in Space. The Master's story arc was to have ended in The Final Game, which was planned as the final story to feature Pertwee's Third Doctor, but the story was scrapped following Delgado's sudden death. The role has since been played by several actors, Peter Pratt, Geoffrey Beevers, Anthony Ainley, Eric Roberts, Derek Jacobi and John Simm.

Roger Delgado died on location in Turkey whilst shooting the (never-completed) feature film Bell of Tibet. He was killed, along with two Turkish film technicians, when the chauffeur-driven car in which he was travelling went off the road into a ravine. Pertwee often remarked (such as in his interview for the Myth Makers series of video documentaries) that Delgado's death at the age of 55 was one of the catalysts that led to his own departure from Doctor Who.