Actor Percy Rodrigues died of kidney failure on 6 September 2007. Born in Montreal, Quebec, on 13 June 1924, he was “an imposing African-Canadian actor who managed to avoid most of the standard stereotypes in Hollywood, usually playing white-collar roles,” according to IMDB.com. His “role as a neurosurgeon in the 1960s television series Peyton Place broke ground because he was cast as an authority figure when relatively few black actors were given such parts,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
His genre film roles include: BrainWaves (1983), Deadly Blessing (1981), Heavy Metal (1981), Galaxina (1980), and Rhinoceros (1974). On television, he appeared in: Gemini Man (1976), Invisible Strangler (1976), Planet of the Apes (1974), The Starlost (1973), Genesis II (1973), Tarzan (1967), Star Trek (1967; he played “Commodore Stone,” a serious authority figure, in the episode “Court Martial”), and The Wild Wild West (1966).
A story in the Los Angeles Times in 1968 noted the increasing number of black actors and performers in weekly television series. Rodrigues, a Canadian of African and Portuguese descent, was preparing to join the final season of Peyton Place as Dr. Harry Miles, with Ruby Dee portraying his wife. “Why shouldn’t I play a neurosurgeon?” Rodrigues asked an interviewer. “Let’s start at the top… I’m going to try to be a human being, as is my family, and if that doesn’t come across, then it’s our fault.”
Before moving to Hollywood in the 1960s, he was a presence on Broadway, and before that, a professional boxer, machinist, and toolmaker. In 1987, he retired from acting to do voice-over work. He found it appealing because it gave him time to play golf, and “he didn’t have to show up at 5 o’clock in the morning for makeup,” said his wife, Karen Cook-Rodrigues, whom he married in 2003.
In addition to his wife, Rodrigues is survived by his daughter Hollis and son Gerald, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His first wife, Alameda, who was the mother of his children, died before him.