Gary Bond

Gary Bond (7 February 1940 – 12 October 1995) was an English-born film and television actor. Bond was born in Liss, Hampshire, England. Although he was probably best known as a theatrical actor in his native England, he also played a number of roles in feature films and on television. Having appeared in Zulu in 1964, he went on to star as Pip in the 1967 television production of Great Expectations and also in The Main Chance. He played Antonio in BBC Television's 1972 production of The Duchess of Malfi. Bond also had cameos in Z-Cars, The Avengers, Hart to Hart and Bergerac. He also starred in the classic Australian film Wake in Fright, filmed in 1970 and released the following year. On stage, he most famously played Joseph in the 1972 London production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Later, he succeeded David Essex as Che Guevara in the London production of Rice and Lloyd Webber's Evita, initially opposite Elaine Paige and, subsequently, Marti Webb. Bond was the partner of actor Jeremy Brett from 1969 to 1976. From 1979 he lived with American artist and illustrator E.J. Taylor, first in Barnes and then in Ealing, London, following their initial meeting in Fire Island, New York, USA. Bond died of AIDS on 12 October 1995 at the age of 55, exactly one month after Jeremy Brett's death.