Henry Woolf

Henry Woolf (20 January 1930-11 November 2021 ) was a London-born film, stage and TV actor who played the Collector in the Doctor Who television story The Sun Makers.

He shared his memories of the story on the 155th edition of Big Finish's charity podcast series Toby Hadoke's Who's Round.

Career
The diminutive actor was a close colleague of Harold Pinter and performed in a number of his plays; Pinter's The Hothouse is dedicated to Woolf. His best-known film work has included Marat/Sade, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Gorky Park. TV work other than Doctor Who has included Rutland Weekend Television (alongside Wanda Ventham and Lyn Ashley), The Protectors, The Sweeney and Steptoe and Son.

When The Sun Makers was broadcast, Woolf was at the time perhaps better known as presenter of the reading/writing primary school series Words and Pictures (1970-ongoing), on which he appeared from 1975 to 1978.

In 1978, Woolf relocated to Saskatoon, Canada and became a drama instructor at the University of Saskatchewan, though he continued to take on occasional film and TV roles, especially if they were based in Canada. In Saskatoon, he is best known as the founder of the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan festival, an annual performance of the Bard's plays with the venue being a tent on the shore of the South Saskatchewan River. These performances usually add an unusual spin to the original play, such as setting Twelfth Night in the Summer of Love in 1967, for example. He retired from his position at the U of S in 1997, and later also departed from his role as director of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. In 2009 it was announced that Woolf would return to the festival, this time as an actor, to play Shylock in the 2010 production of The Merchant of Venice.