Clive Selsby Revill (18 April 1930 â 11 March 2025) was a New Zealand actor and singer, best known for his performances in musical theatre and the London stage. A veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he also starred in numerous films and television programmes, often in character parts. He was a two-time Tony Award nominee, as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Irma La Douce and Best Actor in a Musical for Oliver!.
His film work also included voicing Emperor Palpatine in the original theatrical version of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and roles in Modesty Blaise (1966), The Assassination Bureau (1969), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Legend of Hell House (1973), and ' (1993). Revill was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Billy Wilder's Avanti! (1972). Later in his career, he was active as a voice actor in many animated productions and video games.
Clive Selsby Revill was born on 18 April 1930 in Wellington, the son of Eleanor May (née Neel) and Malet Barford Revill. He was educated at Rongotai College and Victoria University of Wellington.
Revill originally trained to be an accountant in New Zealand, but decided to change his career path in 1950 when he made his stage debut as Sebastian in Twelfth Night. In the same year, he moved to London, where he studied acting at the Old Vic Theatre School. He appeared in The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company's celebrated 1956âÂÂ1958 season of productions in Stratford, which included Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and The Tempest. He went on to have such varied stage roles as Bob (narrator) in Irma la Douce, Ratty in Toad of Toad Hall and Jean-Paul Marat in Marat/Sade.
He made his Broadway debut in 1952, playing Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers, and subsequently appeared in Irma La Douce, The Incomparable Max and Oliver!, for which his Fagin was nominated for a Tony Award. He was also known for his roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas, on both stage and television. He starred in the first national tour of the musical Drood in 1988, replacing George Rose, who was murdered during the run.
Revill also participated in the workshop production of Tom Jones: The Musical, playing the role of Squire Western and reprising it on the cast recording.
Revill's red hair and distinctive Mr. Punch-like features often saw him cast as comic eccentrics in a number of British films of the 1960s and 1970s such as Kaleidoscope (1966), Modesty Blaise (1966), The Double Man (1967), Fathom (1967), The Assassination Bureau (1969), A Severed Head (1970), The Black Windmill (1974) and One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975). He also had notable supporting turns in Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) opposite Laurence Olivier, and his American film debut A Fine Madness (1966), as well as a rare leading role in the horror film The Legend of Hell House (1973).
He was often cast as humorous foreign characters (he has played everything from Chinese to Russian). Two of his highest profile roles of this kind were in two films for Billy Wilder: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Avanti! (1972), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his part as put-upon hotel manager Carlo Carlucci.
He made his final film appearance in the 2016 Spanish film The Queen of Spain, directed by Fernando Trueba.
In the 1978 television miniseries Centennial, he played the Scottish accountant Finlay Perkin. He played both Ko-Ko (the starring role) in The Mikado (which he had played in 1962 at Sadler's Wells Opera), and the title character, John Wellington Wells, in The Sorcerer, for the Brent Walker television series of Gilbert and Sullivan productions, shown by the BBC in 1983.
After relocating to the United States, he guest-starred in many television series, such as Columbo (1978, "The Conspirators"); Hart to Hart; Dynasty; Magnum, P.I.; The Love Boat (S9 E22 as Slade 1986); Remington Steele; Murder, She Wrote; Babylon 5; The Feather and Father Gang; Newhart; MacGyver; Dear John; The Fall Guy; Maude; and '. He starred as the wizard Vector in the short-lived series Wizards and Warriors.
Revill was known for his proficiency with accents. He was also known for his voice work in feature-length films and animated series, which includes Alfred Pennyworth in the first three episodes of ', the voice of Chico in the seven episodes of Chico the Rainmaker (The Boy with the Two Heads) (1974), the voice of Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious in the original The Empire Strikes Back (he was replaced by Ian McDiarmid in the 2004 DVD version, though Revill is still credited, to create continuity with Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy, as Revill's voice greatly differed from McDiarmid's). Revill has also featured in numerous cartoons such as The Transformers and DuckTales and more video games, including ' and '.
Revill was married twice and had a daughter, Kate Selsby Revill, with his second wife.
Revill died of complications from dementia at a Sherman Oaks nursing home, on 11 March 2025, at the age of 94.