Kory Grow
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Anthony Head. David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images Anthony Head, the actor who played Rupert “Ripper” Giles on TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died of complications due to pneumonia at the age of 72.
His daughters Emily and Daisy Head announced their father’s death in a statement to the BBC, writer the actor “passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family.”
Outside of the Buffyverse, Head played crucial roles in the British sketch comedy show Little Britain, the fantasy drama Merlin, and the sports comedy Ted Lasso. But the role of Ruper Giles, Buffy Summers’ mentor and “Watcher,” looms large over his legacy. Outside of the TV series, for which he appeared in 121 episodes, he lent his voice to two Buffy video games, a four-minute Buffy: The Animated Series pilot short, and on the podcast Slayers: A Buffyverse Story. Head’s character was so popular that the show’s creator, Joss Whedon, once considered making a Ripper spinoff movie all about Giles but it never materialized. Head’s Buffy costar, Nicholas Brendan, died in March.
“It has been, and forever will be, an honor and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many,” Emily and Daisy Head said in a statement announcing their father’s death. “We know how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues, and fans of the shows he was in — he loved his job very much, and he always considered himself incredibly lucky, to have been able to work alongside such exceptionally talented people, in such wonderful productions, across a career that spanned several decades.”
Head, who was born in North London on Feb. 20, 1954, studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He got into acting in the Seventies, logging a few TV credits in England in 1978 and appearing in theatrical productions of Godspell, The Rocky Horror Show, and Peter Pan, among others.
His older brother, Murray, had gotten a head start in the creative life as a musician, earning a hit in 1969, singing the “Superstar,” the Jesus Christ Superstar hit sung by the Judas Iscariot character and his own “Someone’s Rocking my Dreamboat” in 1976; Murray Head logged his biggest hit, “One Night in Bangkok,” in 1984. Anthony, who’d been getting mostly small roles in TV and films, found his own fame a couple of years later in British commercials for Nescafe. (Anthony also released a CD of his own music, Music for Elevators, a collaboration with George Sarah in 2002, and he can be heard singing “Sweet Transvestite” on a 1990 Rocky Horror Show album.)
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In the decade between his advertisements and the Buffy pilot, Head appeared in guest roles on shows like Woof!, Highlander, NYPD Blue, and Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place before he cemented his stardom. He later appeared on the British hits Silent Witness and Doctor Who, as well as the BBC’s radio drama The Archers, according to the BBC.
