GNR is sad to report that actor Anthony Head has died at the age of 72.
Anthony Head had a long assisiation with Doctor Who. In 2001, he appeared in a special webcast version of Doctor Who, a story called Death Comes to Time, in which he played the Time Lord Valentine. He also guest starred in the Excelis Trilogy, a series of Doctor Who audio adventures produced by Big Finish Productions, and in 2005 narrated the two-part documentary Project: WHO?, detailing the television revival of the series, for BBC Radio 2 (and released to CD in 2006 by BBC Audio). In April 2006 he appeared as a school’s alien headmaster, Mr. Finch, in an episode of the second series entitled “School Reunion“. Soon after, he recorded an abridged audiobook of the Doctor Who novel The Nightmare of Black Island by Mike Tucker. He narrated the third and fourth series of Doctor Who Confidential. He also voiced the character Baltazar, Scourge of the Universe (an evil space pirate searching for the Infinite) in the first-ever animated Doctor Who special, “The Infinite Quest” Head had previously auditioned for the role of the Eighth Doctor for the 1996 television film, but lost out to Paul McGann.
The Big Finish team were shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Anthony Stewart Head, who worked on the Doctor Who – Excelis trilogy back in 2002. Our sincere condolences go our to his family. RIP.
— Big Finish Insider (@bigfinish.bsky.social) 2026-06-05T17:11:06+00:00
Oh lovely Anthony Head. Had the pleasure of directing him twice – on Big Finish's Doctor Who Excelis trilogy episodes where he played various versions of Lord Grayvorn, then later, on The Infinite Quest, where he played our villain Baltazar. What a gentleman, what an actor and what a sad loss. RIP.
— Gary Russell (@twilightstreets.bsky.social) 2026-06-05T15:50:54.948Z
Anthony Stewart Head was born on 20 February 1954 in Camden Town, London. His father was Seafield Laurence Stewart Murray Head (20 August 1919 – 22 March 2009), a documentary filmmaker and a founder of Verity Films, and his mother was actress Helen Shingler (29 August 1919 – 8 October 2019); they married in 1944 in Watford. His older brother is actor and singer Murray Head. Both brothers played the part of Freddie Trumper in the musical Chess at the Prince Edward Theatre, London, with Murray as part of the original cast in 1986, while Anthony was in the final cast in 1989.
Head was educated at Sunbury Grammar School in Surrey, and furthered his education studying acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). In discussing why he chose acting as a career, in a 2013 interview he said: “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.
Head lived in Bath, Somerset. He also held homes in both Surrey and Alnwick, Northumberland. His partner, Sarah Fisher, was an animal-welfare advocate who died in December 2025. They had two daughters, Emily and Daisy, both of whom are actresses.
It was announced on 5 June 2026 that Head died from complications of pneumonia, aged 72.
