Australian actor Ray Barrett died 7 September 2009 of a brain hemorrhage. Born Raymond Charles Barrett on 2 May 1927 in Brisbane, Australia, he won three Australian Film Institute Awards, as well as the organization’s Raymond Longford Life Achievement Award in 2005.
Perhaps best known as a voice actor on the supermarionation series Thunderbirds (he voiced John Tracy and several other characters) and his long-running role in The Troubleshooters (1965-72, he played Peter Thornton), he began acting at the age of 11, and was the first actor put under contract by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Drama section. He also worked in Australian radio before moving to England in the late 1950s. He returned to Australia in the mid-1970s.
In addition to Thunderbirds (1965-66), Barrett also appeared as Commander Sam Shore in Gerry Anderson’s Stingray (1964-65). His other genre credits include: Visitors (2003), In the Winter Dark (1998), As Time Goes By (1988), Frenchman’s Farm (1987), Contagion (1987), Invaders from the Deep (1981), Thunderbirds are GO (1966), The Reptile (1966), two episodes of Doctor Who (“The Powerful Enemy” and “Desperate Measures”, both in 1965), and Out of This World (1962).
Barrett was married twice. He is survived by his second wife, Gaye (whom he married in 1986) and two children from his first marriage.