A veteran stage, screen and voice actor, W. Morgan Sheppard was an accomplished and RADA trained actor whose career spanned 55 years.
Born William Morgan Sheppard in London on the 24th August 1932, Sheppard graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1958. He then spent 12 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company as an associate artist. He has also appeared in various Broadway productions such as Sherlock Holmes and Marat/Sade and won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for The Homecoming.
I first watched Sheppard in one of a few of his encounters working in the Star Trek franchise as the irate Dr. Ira Graves on The Schizoid Man on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He appeared, later on, in the episode Bliss on Star Trek: Voyager. And in Star Trek films he appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as a Klingon Gulag Guard and finally as a member of The Vulcan High Council in the reboot film, Star Trek in 2009.
Star Trek wasn’t just the only Sci-Fi series that Sheppard was involved in, Babylon 5 and Doctor Who, where he shared the screen with his Son, Mark Sheppard (who has appeared in Leverage and The X-Files as well as Star Trek), among other productions too. Sheppard and Son are among the small group of actors who have appeared in both Star Trek and Doctor Who franchises.
Sheppard has voiced in the animated series, Gargoyles where he played the father of Jonathan Frakes’ (Star Trek: TNG) character. He also voiced Santa Claus in the Disney Prep & Landing Christmas specials.
He also had an extensive Video Game voice-over career including four of the Medal of Honor series as well as Escape From Monkey Island, The Conduit and Civilization V.
Sheppard died on the 6th January 2019, he was 86 years old.
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