Robert Eddison ✝

Robert Leadam Eddison, OBE (10 June 1908 – 14 December 1991) was an English actor, who despite his lengthy career as a classical stage actor, is probably most widely remembered in the role of the Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He also played Merlin in the BBC television series The Legend of King Arthur, and the tragic ferryman in The Storyteller episode "The Luck Child". Eddison was an award-winning actor, known for his mellifluously resonant, baritone voice and long, lean 6' 3" figure. Throughout his 60-year career he was constantly in demand as an actor and worked with many of Britain's greatest stage actors, often during the early formative years of their careers including Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and Maggie Smith. Eddison was born in Yokohama, Japan, to Edwin Eddison and Hilda Muriel Leadham. He had a twin brother,[citation needed] Talbot Leadam Eddison, who later became a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and received the Distinguished Service Cross and The Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Another brother became a director of an engineering company, while the youngest brother was Roger Eddison.[citation needed]