William Gaunt(I)

William Gaunt said in a recent interview that he might well have considered a career as a geologist or anthropologist, had not the theatre beckoned. The Yorkshire-born solicitor's son first studied drama at Baylor University in Texas, did a two-year stint in the army and eventually completed his actor training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His career began on the repertory stage, in one of his earliest roles essaying Mortimer Brewster in the farce Arsenic and Old Lace at the Salisbury Playhouse (1961). After a string of minor television roles, Gaunt landed his breakout role in Sergeant Cork (1963), a whodunit set in 1890s London. The series aired on television from 1963 to 1968. Gaunt was second-billed as Bob Marriott, the astute, methodical sidekick of the titular Scotland Yard sleuth. He then had a pivotal role in a BBC adaptation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1968) (as the heroine's brother) before acquiring a substantial cult following as the ever youthful-looking Nemesis agent Richard Barrett, a specialist code-breaker endowed with enhanced physical and metal powers, in ITC's supernatural adventure/espionage series The Champions (1968). The show was created by the team of Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner.

Gaunt subsequently divided his time between screen and stage. By the end of the 70s, he had served as artistic director of the Liverpool Playhouse. He directed several plays for the Farnham and Liverpool Repertory Companies and at the West End. He spent several seasons with the National Theatre, later headlining in the role of Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Theatre Royal, Plymouth, 2006), Sorin and the Earl of Gloucester, respectively, in The Seagull and King Lear (RSC, 2007-2008). More recently, in 2021, he portrayed Duncan in Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre in London. This performance was filmed and screened two years later by BBC4 as The Tragedy of Macbeth (2023).

The screen had offered Gaunt another recurring role in The Challengers (1972), a miniseries set in the House of Commons and in Westminster's corridors of power. Moreover, leading roles in two popular sitcoms further reinvigorated his career: as a perpetually stressed dad, trying to cope with four kids who won't leave the nest, in the sitcom No Place Like Home (1983); and as a middle class husband, who, with his wife (Penelope Keith) is forced to assume guardianship over three orphaned grandchildren in Next of Kin (1995). Gaunt's portfolio of assorted characters has also included Charles Hurst QC in several episodes of Crown Court (1972), solicitor Edward Capstick in Capstick's Law (1989) and a warrior knight combating Davros and the Daleks in season 22 of Doctor Who (1963). He also lampooned his role in The Champions in a made-for-TV spoof, The Preventers (1996), which poked fun at 60s and 70s British adventure/spy series like The Avengers (1961) and The Persuaders! (1971).

Gaunt has been married to English actress Carolyn Lyster since 1974.