The great New Zealand-born actor Clive Revill has passed away at the age of 94. He died in Sherman Oaks, California, having succumbed to dementia on March 11. The sad news was confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter by his daughter, Kate Selsby Revill-Oglesby. Revill's storied career encompassed performances on the stage, silver screen, and television, and spanned from Shakespeare to horror and Star Trek to Star Wars, and included many voice-acting credits.
Revill, who would have turned 95 on April 18, entered the Star Trek universe in 1991, when he guest starred as Sir Guy of Gisbourne in the fourth-season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Qpid.” The character seeks to marry Maid Marian/Vash (Jennifer Hetrick) and ultimately clashes with Robin Hood/Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his Merry Men, a/k/a Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden), Worf (Michael Dorn), Data (Brent Spiner), Riker (Jonathan Frakes), and Troi (Marina Sirtis).
Among Revill’s other credits, he provided the original voice of the holographic Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. He delivered the chilling line, “There is a great disturbance in the Force.” Years later, when Ian McDiarmid played the character in several films, George Lucas removed Revill’s voice from Empire Strikes Back and replaced it with McDiarmid’s voice. His decades of theater work included Twelfth Night, Irma La Douce, Oliver!, Sherlock Holmes, and The Pirates of Penzance. He earned Tony Award nominations for Irma La Douce and Oliver! Among his films were Modesty Blaise, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Avanti!, the popular horror film The Legend of Hell House, and his final feature, 2016’s The Queen of Spain.
Interestingly, given the Star Trek connection, Revill made his television debut in a 1957 episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood, which cast him as Horatio, and he played the small role of the Fire Marshal in the Mel Brooks big-screen comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which cast Patrick Stewart as King Richard. Subsequent television credits included a mix of live-action and animated work, such as Columbo (he played the last killer in the final regular episode of the show), Wizards and Warriors, Snorks, The Transformers, Batman: The Animated Series, Babylon 5, and Pinky and the Brain. Finally, he also lent his voice to such video games as Star Wars: X-Wing, The Hobbit, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Star Wars: Old Republic.
Revill leaves behind his daughter, Kate Selsby Revill-Oglesby.