Gary Bond was an English film and television actor.

Biography

Bond was born in Liss, Hampshire, England.

He was best known as a theatrical actor in his native England, but also played a number of roles in feature films and on television. Having appeared in Zulu

Zulu (film)

Zulu is a 1964 historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War....

in 1964, he went on to star as Pip in the 1967 television production of Great Expectation, and The Main Chance

The Main Chance

The Main Chance was a British television series which first aired on ITV from 1969-1975. A drama, it depicts the sudden transformation in the life of solicitor David Main who relocates from London to Leeds.-Episodes:...

. He played Antonio in BBC Television

BBC Television

BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

's reputed 1972 production of The Duchess of Malfi

The Duchess of Malfi

The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...

. Bond also had cameos in Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

, The Avengers

The Avengers (TV series)

The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...

, Hart to Hart

Hart to Hart

Hart to Hart is an American television series, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a wealthy couple who also moonlighted as amateur detectives. The series was created by writer Sidney Sheldon and produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg...

, and Bergerac

Bergerac (TV series)

Bergerac was a British television show set on Jersey. Produced by the BBC in association with the Seven Network, and screened on BBC1, it starred John Nettles as the title character Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, a detective in "Le Bureau des Étrangers" Bergerac was a British television show...

. He also starred in the classic Australian film Wake in Fright

Wake in Fright

Wake in Fright is a 1971 Australian film directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence and Chips Rafferty. The screenplay was written by Evan Jones, based on Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel of the same name....

, filmed in 1970 and released the following year.

On stage, he most famously played Joseph in the 1972 London production of Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

 and Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

's musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...

. Later, he succeeded David Essex

David Essex

David Essex OBE is an English musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Since the 1970s, Essex has attained nineteen Top 40 singles in the UK , and sixteen Top 40 albums...

 as Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

 in the London production of Rice and Lloyd Webber's Evita, initially opposite Elaine Paige

Elaine Paige

Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...

 and subsequently, Marti Webb

Marti Webb

Marti Webb is a musical actress from England, who appeared on stage in Evita, before starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one woman show Tell Me on a Sunday in 1980...

.

Personal Life

Bond was the companion of actor Jeremy Brett

Jeremy Brett

Jeremy Brett , born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.-Early life:...

 from 1969 to 1976. He died of AIDS at the age of 55, exactly one month after Brett's death.

American artist and illustrator EJ Taylor was Gary Bond's long-term partner from 1979–1995. Gary and EJ lived together first in Barnes and then in Ealing, London, following their initial meeting in Fire Island, New York, in 1979.

External links