Brian Bedford

Most of Brian Bedford’s career was on the stage, starting at St. Bede’s Grammar School. He was fourteen and played the Virgin Mary—well, it was an all-boys’ school, and there’s really not a lot of options there. Apparently he didn’t mind terribly, because it was acting and he already had the bug. A part was a part, and he would go on to play Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, for which he would receive a 2011 Tony nomination and win a Drama Desk Award. But none of that really matters, because if you know who he is you remember him as a cartoon fox.

The Voice That Launched A Thousand Furries was born in West Yorkshire, near Leeds. He attended Catholic school, as established. He left at fifteen and a few years later started at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. There, he was in the same class as such luminaries as Peter O’Toole and Albert Finney. He became a theatrical actor, primarily, and one who mostly did the great classics of the stage. He was well known for appearing in Shakespeare and Molière. Though he also did more modern stuff like Coward and Stoppard and Williams.

He did a few movies and some television, though most of his television came in various filmed plays. A lot of authors I don’t recognize, but some Shaw and some more Shakespeare. Also a filmed version of his Lady Bracknell that I definitely have to track down. But also he did a Murder, She Wrote and three episodes of The Equalizer, both Cheers and Frasier as two different characters, and More Tales of the City. He was in the movie Grand Prix, with a truly bonkers cast. Apparently he was the only main cast member not to do his own driving, while James Garner was out there doing stunts and winning races against the actual race car drivers.

How did he go from there to being Disney’s Robin Hood? Lord, I don’t know. They’d originally planned for Tommy Steele, it seems, he of the hate crime Irish accent in The Happiest Millionaire. However, he sounded more happy-go-lucky urchin, as in The Happiest Millionaire, than a dramatic hero. For reasons I cannot really answer, the choice for Robin came down to Bedford and fellow British actor Bernard Fox. How they were able to resist casting Fox in the role I cannot imagine, but by casting Bedford they gave us all the sexy fox voice of our childhoods.

Since he lived until 2016, it’s possible he knew about The Furry Thing. I don’t even know how I’d begin to search for an interview where he talks about it if there is one. Maybe no one asked, though goodness knows I would’ve given the opportunity. I do know that he spent thirty years with actor Tim MacDonald, whose only IMDb credit is as the Prince in a production of Romeo and Juliet with Colm Feore as Mercutio and Megan Follows as Juliet, so that’s another thing I have to track down. I suspect that MacDonald mostly worked at the Stratford Festival alongside Bedford, which is adorable to imagine.