Hamilton Camp (30 October 1934 â€" 2 October 2005) was a British singer-songwriter, actor and voice actor.
Early life
Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister. He became a child actor in films and onstage. He originally performed under the name Bob Camp and later changed his name to Hamilton after joining the Subud spiritual movement. For a few years, he billed himself as Hamid Hamilton Camp; in this period, he was leader of a group called Skymonters that released an album in 1973 on Elektra.
Career
Camp's debut as a folk singer was at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960; and his first recording, with Bob Gibson, was Bob Gibson & Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn, from 1961. Over the next four decades he maintained a dual career as a musician/songwriter and as an actor. He appeared in nearly one hundred films and television programmes. Camp is probably best known, however, as the author of the song "Pride of Man", which was recorded by a number of artists, notably Quicksilver Messenger Service, who had a pop hit with it, and Gordon Lightfoot, who included it as one of three covers on his first record. Also Tony Rice included Pride of Man in his Church Street Blues recording from 1983. In addition, an early Gibson & Camp gospel song, "You Can Tell the World" was the opening track on Simon & Garfunkel's first album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. As a singer, Camp had a minor hit with the song "Here's to You," which peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. In 1969 Camp formed a group called The True Brethren with Waqidi Falicoff (guitar, vocals), Raphael Grinage (cello) and Loren Pickford (flute and saxophone). The four later composed the incidental music for the Broadway show Paul Sills' Story Theatre, which won two Tony awards and was nominated for best show in the 1971 awards.
His voice work as "Elle" the robot policeman in the 1978 film Starcrash is a cult favourite and also had a memorable role in the 1976 Peter Bogdanovich film Nickelodeon.
He also performed with the Chicago comedy troupe The Second City and the San Francisco satirical comedy troupe the Committee and appeared in a number of stage productions, including a 2004 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl.
His television work includes a small cameo as a messenger boy in the 1953 Titanic film, and a supporting role on He & She, a sitcom starring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, which ran for one season in 1967-68. He had three uncredited shots as the second clerk in the 1967 film The Graduate. He also guest starred on popular television shows such as M*A*S*H, Soap, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Twilight Zone, Starsky and Hutch, Cheers, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, as the older H. G. Wells. He appeared on two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Leck, a Ferengi and on one episode of Star Trek: Voyager as a Malon freighter pilot. He also had the misfortune of being a "regular" on three series that were each cancelled after only one episode: In 1969 on Turn-On and in 1979 on both Co-Ed Fever and McGurk: A Dog's Life. In 1977, he appeared in three episodes of The Feather and Father Gang. In 1978, in the opening season of WKRP in Cincinnati, Camp guest starred in episode 5 as Del Murdock, owner of Del's Stereo and Sound. He returned to WKRP as Johnny Fever's ex-wife's new fiance. In 1980, Camp also appeared as a semi-regular on Too Close for Comfort as Arthur Wainwright, the adventurous, youth-oriented boss of Henry Rush, and on the FOX sitcom Titus as Erin Fitzpatrick's alcoholic father, Merritt. He also played Bart Furley, Ralph Furley's (Don Knotts) brother, in the Three's Company episode "Furley VS Furley".
Camp was the voice of Professor Moriarty in the English dub of the anime series Sherlock Hound.
He was the voice of Fenton Crackshell, aka GizmoDuck, on the Disney animated series DuckTales and its spinoff Darkwing Duck. He played the role of old Malcolm Corley in LucasArts's graphic adventure Full Throttle. He also voiced the Prophet of Mercy in the 2004 video game Halo 2. He became Disney Studio's new voice of Merlin, following the death of Karl Swenson. Hamilton Camp also voiced for Hannaâ€"Barbera; as Greedy Smurf and Harmony Smurf on the The Smurfs series and all of HB's Smurf television specials, Count Dracula in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, Turk Tarpit in The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, Mr. Gruber in Paddington Bear, The Grand Dozer on Potsworth & Co., Samurai Ghost on the episode "Now Museum, Now You Don't" from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and Barney Rubble as a kid in The Flintstones Kids.
Camp's final work was on the film Hard Four in early 2005, as well as a musical album produced by James Lee Stanley called Sweet Joy, completed just days before his death.
Personal life and death
He married Rasjadah Lisa Jovita Cisz in 1961, and they had six children. His wife Rasjadah died in 2002. He died suddenly of a heart attack on 2 October 2005, at the age of 70, four weeks before his 71st birthday, and was survived by his six children and thirteen grandchildren.
Discography
- Bob Gibson and Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn at AllMusic (1961, Rhino)
- Paths of Victory at AllMusic (1964, Collectors' Choice Music)
- Here's to You at AllMusic (1967, Warner Brothers Music)
- Welcome to Hamilton Camp at AllMusic (1967, Warner Brothers Music)
- Skymonters With Hamid Hamilton Camp at AllMusic (1973, Elektra)
- Homemade Music (Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp) (1978, Mountain Railroad Records)
- Mardi's Bard at AllMusic (2003, DJC)
- Sweet Joy at AllMusic (2005, Beachwood)
Filmography
References
External links
- Official website
- Hamilton Camp at AllMusic
- Hamilton Camp at the Internet Movie Database
- Hamilton Camp at Find a Grave