Roy Dotrice, who played Roger Wyndham-Pryce in Lineage, was born in Guernsey. When the Germans occupied the island in 1940, Roy, his mother and brother escaped to England. In 1942, aged 16, Roy joined the Royal Air Force and was trained as a wireless operator and air gunner. He was soon flying missions, bombing enemy territory until his plane was shot down. Captured and taken prisoner, Roy spent the rest of the war as a P.O.W., where he performed concerts to raise the spirits of his fellow inmates.
At the end of the war, Roy pursued an acting career. He met and married actress Kay Newman, and for the next three and half years, they acted in repertory with Charles Denville and the Denville Players. During this time, Roy also produced and directed some three hundred plays, with a new one being performed each week.
In 1957, Roy joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, England, (later to become the Royal Shakespeare Company), and for the next nine years performed in all of Shakespeare’s plays while working with the world’s greatest actors and directors including Paul Robeson, Sam Wanamaker, Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole, Charles Laughton and Albert Finney.
The training he received was to lead him into radio, film, television, and a multitude of theatre productions staged throughout the world. Roy has appeared in ten Broadway productions and received a Tony nomination for his work in A Life, and on June 4, 2000 received a Tony award for his outstanding performance in A Moon for the Misbegotten.
Roy and Kay have been married for 53 years and have three daughters, all whom have become actresses.