Occupation Actor Role Actor Name Matt Zimmerman | Television Thunderbirds Years active 1965–present | |
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Born 26 December 1934 (age 89) ( 1934-12-26 ) Sudbury, Ontario, Canada Alma mater London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Spouse Shirley Chapman (m. ?–2002) Education London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Bowling Green State University Movies and TV shows Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds Are Go, Thunderbird 6, A Man for All Seasons, Birth of the Beatles Similar People Ray Barrett, Sylvia Anderson, Gerry Anderson, Barry Gray, Rasmus Hardiker |
Matt Zimmerman (born 26 December 1934) is a Canadian actor, best known as the voice of Alan Tracy in the 1960s television series Thunderbirds and sequel films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6.
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Life and career
Born in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, and educated in Detroit, Michigan, United States, Zimmerman started acting at an early age. He attended Bowling Green State University, Ohio, where he was a telecommunications major. Having won a scholarship, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1959 to study drama at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), where he was a contemporary of Ed Bishop.
Besides voicing Alan in Thunderbirds, Zimmerman, like other actors on the series, also voiced various minor characters. He made a live-action appearance in one episode of UFO ("Exposed", 1970) and one episode of Space: 1999, both among Gerry Anderson's other TV productions.
Zimmerman also starred as Shooty in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Other TV appearances include T-Bag, Mike and Angelo, Crazy Like a Fox, Never the Twain, in addition to many commercials, most notably for Wrangler Jeans.
He returned to the Thunderbirds franchise in the 2015 Thunderbirds Are Go episode Tunnels of Time as Professor Harold.
Also a stage actor, Zimmerman has starred in plays such as Annie Get Your Gun, Anything Goes, Once in a Lifetime and West Side Story, and made his most recent West End appearance in Fiddler on the Roof at the Savoy Theatre in London. In 2008, he appeared in the touring cast of Cabaret, taking the role of Herr Schultz.