Roy Skelton

Born in Nottingham to John H Skelton and Dorothy (née Bromley),[1] Skelton trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and worked at Oxford for a year, being lead juvenile to Ronnie Barker. In 1965, he began his long association with Doctor Who voicing the Monoids in The Ark. In the 1966 story, The Tenth Planet, Skelton provided the voices of the original Cybermen, delivering an unsettling, sing-song voice constructed by placing the inflections of words on the wrong syllables.[3] In 1967, Skelton began voicing the Daleks with The Evil of the Daleks alongside Peter Hawkins, who recommended him. Skelton's first on-screen role was as Norton in Colony in Space (1971); during rehearsals could not stop laughing while warning of killer lizards.

In 1973, he became the voice of both Zippy and George in Rainbow, continuing the roles for over 30 years and writing over 150 episodes. That same year he played the on-screen role of James in the Doctor Who story The Green Death standing in for Tony Adams. Skelton was asked to play Davros in Genesis of the Daleks, but due to filming Rainbow had to be replaced by Michael Wisher. He and another Dalek voice Brian Miller would appear together in Barry Letts's 1986 production of Alice in Wonderland.

Skelton died at his home in Brighton, East Sussex, on 8 June 2011, after suffering a stroke less than 2 months before his 80th birthday.[4]

• Characters voiced by Roy Skelton
• 
  Zippy and George in Rainbow
• 
  Cybermen in
  Doctor Who
• 
  Daleks in
  Doctor Who

• Roy Skelton at IMDb
• Obituary in The Independent