A symbol of intelligence, leadership and moral strength in his various 60s and 70s roles, African-Canadian actor Percy Rodrigues rose in Hollywood stature during the late 60s following a couple of earlier Broadway appearances. The serenely handsome, distinguished-looking actor also became notable for helping to break racial barriers on TV and went on to become a voice of great distinction behind the camera.
The oldest of four children born to a Montreal couple on June 13, 1918 (some references list 1924 as his birth year), Percy was of African and Portuguese descent. His father abandoned the family while he was a youth and Percy started working as a teenager to help provide for his family. By his late teens he had become a professional boxer and started scouting out acting jobs at the same time. He joined Montreal's Negro Theater Guild and although winning a Canadian Drama Festival acting award in 1939, found job offers scarce, prompting him to work as a machinist and toolmaker for the next decade or so in order to supplement his income.
His distinctive, booming voice commanded early attention and he narrated a few Canadian documentary shorts and appeared on TV. He finally made his Broadway debut in middle age with the Lillian Hellman drama "Toys in the Attic" starring Jason Robards, Maureen Stapleton and Anne Revere. He followed that with a stronger role in 1964's "Blues for Mister Charlie" in which he shared the stage with African-American actors Al Freeman Jr., Lincoln Kilpatrick, Rosetta LeNoire, Otis Young and Tony nominee Diana Sands.
This attention eventually led to film and TV offers and he settled permanently in Los Angeles. From the beginning he sought out dignified roles following Sidney Poitier's emboldening Hollywood ascension and became one of just a small vanguard of 60s black actors who was able to circumnavigate around such restrictive and negative stereotypes throughout most of his career. With just a brush of grey at his temples, he applied and projected quiet authority and inner calm to his many roles. He broke into American TV with episodes of "The Nurses", "Naked City", "Wild, Wild West", "Route 66" and (especially) "Star Trek" (as Commodore Stone) before making big news in 1968 for his casting as a neurosurgeon during the final season of the popular nighttime soaper Peyton Place (1964). Co-starring with Ruby Dee as his wife, it was a breakthrough white-collar role for a black actor in a series. In the same year Percy had an excellent supporting role in the critically-heralded film adaptation of Carson McCullers tender drama Le coeur est un chasseur solitaire (1968), in which he carried his own story line as an embittered physician at odds with daughter Cicely Tyson.
Other imposing roles came his way in the form of detectives, mayors, commissioners, lawyers, politicians, scientists, captains, ambassadors, lieutenants and, of courses, doctors, which seemed to be a growing specialty. More interesting roles came with the mini-movies The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970), Ring of Passion (1978), Angel Dusted (1981) and Racines 2 (1979). He also had recurring roles on Sanford (1980), the one-season extended series of "Sanford and Son" (minus the son) that again starred Redd Foxx, and in Benson (1979), in which he played a judge.
He continued to remain visible in the 1980s with episodes of "The Fall Guy", "T.J. Hooker" and "Dynasty", but after playing a doctor in the mini-movie whodunnit Perry Mason - Le mauvais esprit (1987), Percy refrained from on-camera work and focused instead on his image as "The King of Voiceovers". Among his more notable vocal projects were his eery voicings for the ads and trailers of the film Les dents de la mer (1975) and his narration of Michael Jackson's musical sci-fi Captain EO (1986) for Disney.
Percy's marriage to first wife Alameda produced daughter Hollis and son Gerald. Following her death, he married Karen Cook in 2003. He died of kidney problems at his Indio, California home on September 6, 2007 at age 89.
