Philip James Voss (20 August 1936 – 13 November 2020) was a British stage, radio, film and television actor.

Early life

Voss was born in Leicester, the elder son of James Voss, a pharmacist, and his wife, Viola (née Walmsley). He had a younger brother, John. When he and his family moved to the village of Wollaton, near Nottingham, he attended Nottingham High Pavement Grammar School. He joined a local amateur theatre and, after national service with the RAF, trained for the stage at RADA.

Career

Voss played roles in the Doctor Who serials Marco Polo and The Dominators,^[1] Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, the 1981 Lord of the Rings radio series,^[2] Indian Summer, an RSC 1996 revival of The White Devil, The Brides in the Bath, two plays in the Arkangel Shakespeare and a small role in an audio dramatisation of an Anton Chekhov short story.^[3] He also played recurring roles in the TV series Fish as Ivan Vishnevski and Vicious as Ian McKellen's cynical brother Mason Thornhill.

Other credits include a stint at the London Shakespeare Workout, two roles for the Shared Experience Company (in Three Sisters and The Seagull), and playing Serebryakov in a West End rendition of Anton Chekhov's The Wood Daemon. At the RSC during the 1990s, he played Menenius in Coriolanus, Sir Epicure Mammon in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and Prospero in The Tempest.

Personal life and death

From the 1970s onwards, Voss lived in Bushey, Hertfordshire, with his partner, writer John Peacock. They entered into a civil partnership in 2006, and remained together until Peacock’s death in 2017. Voss died from cancer and complications of COVID-19 in Watford, Hertfordshire, on 13 November 2020, aged 84. He was survived by his brother.^[4]

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

• Ivanov as Shabelsky, Director Trevor Nunn, National Theatre
• Love's Labour Lost as Boyet, Director Trevor Nunn, National Theatre
• As You Like It as Jaques, Director Peter Hall, Theatre Royal Bath/USA
• The Royal Hunt of the Sun as Miguel Estete, National Theatre
• Uncle Vanya as Alexandr Vladmiirovich Serebryakov, Director Hugh Fraser, Wilton's Music Hall
• The Giant as Lodovico/Soderini, Director Gregory Doran, Hampstead Theatre
• The Circle as Lord Porteous, Director Joanthan Church, Chichester Festival Theatre
• Apologia as Hugh, Director Josie Rourke, Bush Theatre
• Canary (2010) as Older Tom, Director Hettie MacDonald, Liverpool Everyman

Radio

• Aspects of Love as Sir George, BBC Radio
• The Lord of the Rings as the Lord of the Nazgûl, BBC Radio
• Tulips in Winter as Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel, BBC Radio