Almost a year ago now, on March 29th, 2019, Canadian character actor Shane Rimmer passed away aged 89. For many, myself included, it was a piece of news in which you realise that a piece of their childhood is, not dead exactly, but it’s definitely a long way away in a place you can never quite completely revisit.
Born in 1928, Rimmer originally began his career as a singer and DJ on Canadian radio, initially being brought to the UK in 1959 by the director Richard Lester for a TV special, before touring the country as part of a singing trio, the Three Deuces. In 1962, on a tour entertaining US troops abroad, he met dancer Sheila Logan. They married the following year, settling in London, whereupon she became his agent and his acting career began to take off.
Rimmer’s career on stage and screen was to be long and varied—his rugged looks lent themselves well to cool-under-pressure characters , control room operators, officials, technicians, cops and the like, dubbing himself a “Rent-a-Yank” of British films. He had roles and guest spots in many a famous film and television show: including Dr Strangelove (1964), Doctor Who, The Gunfighters (1966), The Persuaders! (1971), Star Wars (1977), Batman Begins (2005), Dark Shadows (2012), the James Bond and Superman franchises, and many, many more. But the part that many will know him for is that of Scott Tracy in Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s beloved television puppet series Thunderbirds (1965-66). The eldest Tracy brother and pilot of super-fast first response vehicle Thunderbird 1, Rimmer’s voice lent the character a warmth and a calm stoicism that proved a creation made of fibreglass could make hearts flutter.
Rimmer voiced Scott (along with the odd incidental character) in all 32 episodes and both feature films, Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968), becoming firmly identified not only with the Science Fiction Genre but with the Andersons themselves. He provided voices and wrote scripts for their subsequent puppet shows, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68) Joe 90 (1968-69) and The Secret Service (1969), appeared in their live-action Science Fiction series, UFO (1970-71) and Space: 1999 (1975-76), and contributed scripts to their other live action series, The Protectors (1973-74). In 1986 he voiced the title character in Dick Spanner, PI, the stop motion animation series created by Terry Adlam – who worked on the effects for Gerry Anderson’s 1980s puppet series Terrahawks (1983-86) – for UK broadcaster Channel 4’s Network 7 programme, and on which Anderson was a producer. Consisting of 22 six minute episodes, the show was a parody of the hard-boiled detective genre, Spanner himself being an inept robotic, Chandleresque gumshoe, with a visual pun count that borders on the incredible. Rimmer’s performance is delightfully deadpan, taking it just seriously enough that the comedy is accentuated and has something to bounce off of. The following year he starred in the unaired pilot that would become Space Precinct (1994-95).
Over the years, Thunderbirds—as well as the rest of the Anderson pantheon—has gained a worldwide following that spans generations, and with that has come the accoutrements of cult fame in the form of fan clubs and conventions. Rimmer became a loyal ambassador for the series; a popular convention guest characterised by and loved for his humour and easy-going manner with fans. In 2010, he appeared in Thunderbirds 2010, a 15-minute fan film, portraying Jeff Tracy in a voiceover on Thunderbird 3’s radio.
He carried on working almost right up until the end, releasing an autobiography, From Thunderbirds to Pterodactyls (2010), and doing many more commercial voiceovers, including the official Nasa guided tour at Cape Canaveral and, most recently, the Cartoon Network series The Amazing World of Gumball (2014-17).
A wonderful human being who will be much missed.
