David Bailie ✝

David Bailie (4 December 1937 – 6 March 2021) was a South African actor, known for his performances on stage, television and film. In the 1960s and 1970s he worked for both the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was an associate artist. On TV he played "Dask" in the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death, and also appeared in Blake's 7. On film, he played the mute pirate Cotton in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Bailie was also a professional photographer, specialising in portrait photography. He had a studio in West Kensington, London. Bailie was born in Springs, South Africa on 4 December 1937, and went to boarding school in Swaziland, before emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with his family in 1952. His first acting experience soon after school in 1955 was an amateur production of Doctor in the House, which persuaded him he wanted to be an actor. After leaving school he worked in a bank and then for Central African Airlines. In 1958, he made his first trip from Rhodesia to Britain. Bailie died on 6 March 2021 at the age of 83.