Hamilton Camp

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  • Years Active: 1960s

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Biography Wikipedia

Wikipedia:

Hamilton Camp (30 October 1934 – 2 October 2005) was an English-American singer, songwriter, actor and voice actor.

Early life

Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister(s). He became a child actor in films and onstage. He originally performed under the name Bob Camp and later changed his name to Hamilton after joining the Subud spiritual movement. For a few years, he billed himself as Hamid Hamilton Camp; in this period, he was leader of a group called Skymonters that released an album in 1973 on Elektra.

Career

Camp's debut as a folk singer was at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960; and his first recording, with Bob Gibson, was Bob Gibson & Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn, from 1961. Over the next four decades he maintained a dual career as a musician/songwriter and as an actor. He appeared in nearly one hundred films and television programmes. Camp is probably best known, however, as the author of the song "Pride of Man", which was recorded by a number of artists, notably Quicksilver Messenger Service, who had a pop hit with it, and Gordon Lightfoot, who included it as one of three covers on his first record. In addition, an early Gibson & Camp gospel song, "You Can Tell the World" was the opening track on Simon & Garfunkel's first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. As a singer, Camp had a minor hit with the song "Here's to You," which peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. In 1969 Camp formed a group call "The True Brethren" with Waqidi Falicoff (guitar, vocals, see Waqidi Falicoff, Music Career), Raphael Grinage (cello) and Loren Pickford (flute and saxophone). The four later composed the incidental music for the Broadway show Paul Sills' Story Theatre, which won 2 Tony awards and was nominated for best show in the 1971 awards.

His voice work as "Elle" the robot policeman in the 1978 film Starcrash is a cult favourite.

He also had a memorable role in the 1976 Peter Bogdanovich film Nickelodeon starring Burt Reynolds, Ryan O'Neal, Stella Stevens and John Ritter.

He also performed with the San Francisco satirical comedy troupe the Committee and appeared in a number of stage productions, including a 2004 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl.

His television work includes a small cameo as a messenger boy in the 1953 Titanic film, a supporting role on He & She, a sitcom starring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, which ran for one season in 1967-68. He appeared with three shots as the second clerk that is being uncredited in the 1967 film The Graduate. He also guest starred on popular television shows such as M*A*S*H, Soap, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Twilight Zone, Starsky and Hutch, Cheers, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (as the older H. G. Wells). He appeared on two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Leck, a Ferengi and on one episode of Star Trek: Voyager as a Malon freighter pilot. He also had the misfortune of being a "regular" on three series that were each cancelled after only one episode: Turn-On (1969), Co-Ed Fever and McGurk: A Dog's Life, (both in 1979). In the opening season of WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), Camp guest starred in episode 5 as Del Murdock, owner of Del's Stereo and Sound. He returned to WKRP as Johnny Fever's ex-wife's new fiance. Camp also appeared as a semi-regular on Too Close for Comfort (1980) as Arthur Wainwright, the adventurous, youth-oriented boss of Ted Knight's Henry Rush, and on the FOX sitcom Titus as Erin Fitzpatrick's alcoholic father, Merritt. He also played Bart Furley, Ralph Furley's (Don Knotts) brother, in an episode of Three's Company (Furley VS Furley)

He was the voice of Professor Moriarty in the English dub of the anime serie Sherlock Hound.

He was the voice of Fenton Crackshell, aka GizmoDuck, on the Disney animated series DuckTales and its spinoff Darkwing Duck. He played the role of old Malcolm Corley in LucasArts's graphic adventure Full Throttle. He also voiced the Prophet of Mercy in the 2004 video game Halo 2. He also voiced Count Dracula in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, and became Disney Studio's new voice of Merlin, following the death of Karl Swenson. He also voiced for Hanna–Barbera.

Camp's final work was on the film Hard Four in early 2005, as well as a musical album produced by James Lee Stanley called Sweet Joy, completed just days before his death.

Personal life and death

He married Rasjadah Lisa Jovita Cisz in 1961, and they had six children. His wife Rasjadah died in 2002. He died suddenly of a heart attack on 2 October 2005, at the age of 70, four weeks before his 71st birthday, and is survived by his six children and thirteen grandchildren.

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