Actor best known as the voice of Alan Tracy in
Thunderbirds
MATT ZIMMERMAN, who has died aged 87, was a Canadianborn stage and screen actor who spent most of his life in Britain and established a cult following as the voice of Alan Tracy, the blond, clean-cut youngest of five International Rescue brothers in Thunderbirds,
the “Supermarionation” sci-fi puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.
“I was doing a show called High Spirits at the Savoy Theatre when my chum David Holliday, who was already cast as Virgil, told me the Andersons were struggling to find an Alan,” Zimmerman recalled in an interview. “He put my name forward.
“When I went into Sylvia Anderson’s office, she had a puppet doll of Alan on her desk. ‘Don’t speak!’ she yelled when she first saw me. ‘Oh my God!’ she added. ‘This doll could have been modelled on you!’
“...When Sylvia told me to speak, I simply said ‘It’s very nice to meet you’. Again she shouted. ‘That’s the voice!’ I was given the job there and then.”
Zimmerman and his fellow Tracy brothers – Alan was the main pilot of the spaceship Thunderbird 3
– recorded 10 half-hour episodes: “We had a feeling it was going to be successful, but we never imagined it would take off as it did.”
He voiced the character in all but the first episode of the 1960s series, and in the spin-off films Thunderbirds
and Thunderbird 6.
In later life Zimmerman became a well-known figure at sci-fi conventions around the country, helping to raise funds for charity, and he continued to receive letters from fans from all over the world: “My most treasured item of memorabilia is an original Thunderbird 3
rocket ship signed by America’s first astronaut, Alan Shepard, after whom Alan Tracy was named.”
Matt Zimmerman was born on Boxing Day 1934 in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. His mother had married a German Jew who later converted to Catholicism but continued to honour Jewish traditions, such as lighting the Shabbat candles.
In 2008, when Zimmerman was appearing as the Jewish fruit seller Herr Schultz in a UK touring production of Cabaret he said that the musical had enabled him to learn something about his father’s family.
In 1959 he moved to Britain to study at Lamda and went on to work in film and on television, including an episode of UFO (1970), the Andersons’ first live action series, and he was Shooty, one of two Blagulon galactic policemen, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (1981). He played a messenger in the Oscarwinning A Man For All Seasons.
His first love, however, was the stage, and in 2000 he reckoned he had done about 24 musicals and plays in the West End, his favourite being Annie. He played Bert Healey in the original West End production in 1978 and by 2000, when he appeared as FDR, he reckoned that he had played every male role in some 2,500 performances.
In 2005 he played the Bishop in the National Theatre’s Once in a Lifetime,
and in 2007 he was Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at the Savoy Theatre. In an episode of ITV’S 2015 computeranimated Thunderbirds
reboot, Thunderbirds Are Go,
he guest-starred as the voice of Professor Harold.
In 1960 Zimmerman had a chance meeting with Shirley Chapman, a mezzo-soprano who would go on to sing leading roles, including Carmen, at the English National Opera.
“I proposed within 10 minutes,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I’m going to marry you,’ and she said, ‘I’ve already got a fiancé,’ to which I replied, ‘I’m sorry about that but it’s in the cards, you can’t avoid it.’”
Their marriage in 1962 proved to be one of the happiest and strongest in theatrical circles. Shirley died in 2002.