It is with great sadness we bring you news that Anthony Head, star of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Ted Lasso, Merlin, and more has died at the age of 72. The British TV icon, whose career spanned six decades, passed away of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family, per a statement from his daughters shared with BBC News.
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the death of our extraordinary father,” Head’s daughters Emily and Daisy said in their statement to the BBC. “It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many.” Continuing, his children noted “how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues and fans of the show he was in”, paying tribute to their father and to a man who “loved his job very much” and “always considered himself incredibly lucky”.
Born on 20 February, 1954 in Camden Town, London, Anthony Stewart Head had the creative arts in his genes: his father, Seafield Head, was an acclaimed documentarian and one of Verity Films’ founders, while his mother Helen Shingler — who passed away in 2019 aged 100 — was a well-known British TV and film star herself. Speaking to the Metro in 2013, Head said of his vocational calling, “When it’s in your family, it’s a choice, it’s there. It’s not a jump to say: ‘I want to act.’ When I was six I was in a little show my mother’s friends organised, playing the Emperor in The Emperor’s New Clothes. I remember thinking: ‘This is the business, this is what I want to do.’” And do it he did.
A graduate of LAMDA, Head first came to public attention as the star of Nescafé’s Gold Blend ads, of all things, in the late 80s and early 90s, his will-they-won’t-they onscreen micro-romance with Sharon Maughan gripping the nation and birthing a star in the process. Heading into the last decade of the millennium, Head proved his chops further by treading the boards as Frank N. Furter in a West End revival of The Rocky Horror Show, before landing arguably his career defining role, as Buffy Summers’ mentor/Watcher/surrogate father figure — and Sunnydale High School’s resident librarian — Rupert Giles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Dry-witted and a dab hand with exposition, Giles — whose transition from mild-mannered man of books beginnings in Buffy to a wonderfully fleshed out, surprisingly nimble, and all-round frankly badass character over the show’s six seasons is executed brilliantly by Head — is undoubtedly one of the series’ most iconic characters, and one of those great unique 90s TV creations. But while Anthony Head would come to be defined by — and beloved as — Giles for a whole generation of millennial telly lovers, the actor had no shortage of other memorable roles on screens big and small. From the unhinged Repo Man in Darren Lynn Bousman’s infamous Repo! The Genetic Opera, to King Uther Pendragon in BBC’s beloved Merlin, to the villainous Mr. Finch in fan-favourite David Tennant era Doctor Who episode ‘School Reunion’ and the British Prime Minister in Little Britain, Head popped up here, there, and everywhere, and was always a highlight of whichever project he lent his talent to.
In recent years, Anthony Head continued to enjoy working across all mediums, reprising the role of Giles in Audible’s Slayers: A Buffyverse Story series, joining the cast of legendary British radio soap The Archers, and — most notably — relishing a hissable villain turn as dastardly former AFC Richmond owner Rupert Mannion in Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. Deservedly, Head and his Lasso co-stars received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series for the football comedy’s third (and then-final) series in 2023.
Anthony Stewart Head played librarians and kings, alien teachers and organ repossessors, coffee ad lovers and sweet transvestites from transexual Transylvania over the course of a career that lasted over fifty years — and he did it all with the utmost gravitas, love for his craft, and respect of his peers. His daughters said in their statement after their father’s passing that “his legacy will live on.” We fully agree. Our thoughts are with Anthony Head’s friends, family, and loved ones at this difficult time.
