Roy Dotrice, the British actor best known for his role as Mozart’s father in Amadeus and his work on Game of Thrones, has died at the age of 94. A brief statement from his family states he “died peacefully on Monday October 16 in his London home surrounded by family, including his three daughters, grandchildren and great-grandson.”
Dotrice had a prolific career in acting that spanned back to the 1950s, but is now best known for his work narrating all of the lengthy unabridged Game of Thrones audiobooks. In 2011, the Guinness World Records company certified him as the record holder for greatest number of characters voiced in an audio book at 224. The award states Dotrice “performed distinct and distinguishable voices for every role in the 28 disc unabridged version of A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, released on 13 January, 2004.”
We can only guess at how many characters he voiced in total over all of the books. Shortly after Dotrice earned the award, author George R.R. Martin noted “I think Roy may well have broken it already with his recordings for A Clash of Kings and (especially) A Storm of Swords. But I will leave the Guinness people to sort that out.” Dotrice has done an audio version of each book up to the most recent fifth release, A Dance With Dragons.
Dotrice’s work with the series wasn’t limited to the audiobooks. He also made an appearance on the HBO adaptation, playing Hallyne the Pyromancer in the season 2 episodes “The Ghost of Harrenhall” and “Blackwater.” Dotrice and George R.R. Martin went way back. The two met working on CBS’s 1987 series Beauty and the Beast, where Martin worked as a writer in which Dotrice appeared as a regular. Originally, Dotrice was set to have a larger role when Game of Thrones was starting out but a bout with cancer (which Dotrice successfully fought off) nixed those plans.
Dotrice’s extensive resume included regular roles on Picket Fences, Murder She Wrote, Beauty and the Beast, plus appearances on Angel, Sliders, Hercules, The A-Team, Remington Steele, and Magnum PI.
