Bernard Horsfall 1930 - 2013

The actor Bernard Horsfall has died at the age of 82.

He appeared in 14 episodes of Doctor Who, alongside the second, third and fourth Doctors.

Born on 20th November 1930 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, Horsfall had a long career in film and television in the UK, including roles in the feature films On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Gandhi and Braveheart.

He appeared in many classic television dramas including Casualty, Agatha Christie: Poirot, The Bill, The Jewel in the Crown, Juliet Bravo, Minder, When the Boat Comes In, Within These Walls, Jackanory, Elizabeth R, Doomwatch, Out of the Unknown, Softly Softly, Dr. Finlay's Casebook and Z Cars. He also played the respected doctor Philip Martel in the Channel Islands wartime drama Enemy at the Door, which ran for 26 episodes between 1978 and 1980.

Horsfall's first appearance in Doctor Who came in the 1968 story The Mind Robber, where he played Lemuel Gulliver, encountered by the second Doctor in the Land of Fiction.

After a small role as the First Time Lord in the final Troughton story The War Games, Horsfall returned to the series in 1973, playing the Thal Taron in the six-part story Planet of the Daleks, working with the third Doctor to defeat the Daleks on the planet Spiridon.

His final role in Doctor Who is arguably the one he is most famous for, playing Chancellor Goth in the 1976 story The Deadly Assassin. His most famous scene involved a battle with the fourth Doctor inside the Matrix with the climax of episode three showing the Doctor being held underwater by Goth. The sequence prompted complaints from the TV campaigner Mary Whitehouse and was edited from repeat showings.

Horsfall returned to the world of Doctor Who in 2003 when he played Arnold Baynes in the Big Finish audio play Davros.

The actor, who was due to attend the 2013 Gallifrey One convention next month, collapsed and died this morning.