David Bailie is an English actor, known for his performances on stage, television and film. In the 1960s and 1970s he worked for both the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was an associate artist. On TV he played "Dask" in the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death, and also appeared in Blake's 7. On film, he played the mute pirate Cotton in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Bailie is also a professional photographer, specialising in portrait photography. He has a studio in West Kensington, London.
Life and career
Bailie was born in Springs, South Africa, and went to boarding school in Swaziland, before emigrating to Rhodesia with his family in 1952. His first acting experience soon after school in 1955 was an amateur production of Doctor in the House, which persuaded him he wanted to be an actor. After leaving school he worked in a bank and then for Central African Airlines. In 1958, he made his first trip from Rhodesia to Britain. In 1960 he moved to Britain and landed his first small role in the film Flame in the Streets and then played one of the bell boys in Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad with Stella Adler playing Madame Rospettle He then bluffed his way into weekly repertory in Barrow-in-Furness as juvenile lead – terrified the while that he would be exposed as totally inexperienced. Recognising the need for training, he auditioned three times for a bursary to the RADA—each time being accepted only as a fee-paying student, which he couldn't afford. He finally sent for the last of his standby money he had left in Rhodesia and paid for the first term. At the end of term he persuaded John Fernald to allow him free tuition for the next two years. Terry Hands was also a student at the same time, but had left a little earlier than Bailie and formed the Everyman Theatre with Peter James in Liverpool. On leaving RADA Bailie was invited to join the Everyman in 1964. Amongst other roles he played "Tolen" in The Knack..., "Becket" in Murder in the Cathedral, "Dion" in The Great God Brown, "MacDuff" in Macbeth and "Lucky" in Waiting for Godot. After a year there, he came back to London and auditioned for and was accepted by Sir Laurence Olivier joining the National Theatre. He played minor roles and also understudied Olivier in Love for Love. Terry Hands, who had by now joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, invited Bailie to join them as an associate artist. There he portrayed "Florizel" opposite Judi Dench's "Perdita" in The Winter's Tale along with "Valentine" in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, "The Bastard" in King John, "Kozanka" in The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising and "Leslie" in The Madness of Lady Bright. During the early 1970s he worked with Stomu Yamashta at his Red Buddha Theatre. He was cast as the lead in a show called Raindog, requiring him to do everything from singing and dancing, to performing Martial Arts and gymnastics – which he frankly admits been a demand too far and when Yamashta offered him a paltry sum for performing the opportunity was there to depart which he did. He was then cast by Michael E. Briant in 1976 to play the part of the villain "Dask" in the Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death. He also played in a number of other series prominent at the time. For personal reasons Bailie then had a long recess in his acting career. Between 1980 and 1989 he ran a furniture-making business. In 1990 he closed that down and returned to acting, having in fact to virtually restart his career. It didn't help that at exactly this point he had to have a cancer removed from his lip, which required learning to speak again. Whilst awaiting work in the acting field he busied himself with CAD design, self-training and writing computer programs and also doing health and safety work in the building industry. In the mid-1990s after playing alongside Brian Glover in The Canterbury Tales he made a comeback in the film business as "Skewer" in Cutthroat Island, then played an English Judge in ', and also "The Engineer" in Gladiator. Bailie's best-known work in film is the role of "Cotton", a mute pirate who has his tongue cut out, so he trained his parrot, also named Cotton, to speak on his behalf, though it cannot say more than stock phrases. Bailie first appears as Cotton in ' as one of the pirates Jack Sparrow chooses in Tortuga. He is one of the Black Pearl crewmembers to survive the Kraken attack in the sequel ', and also played Cotton in the third instalment: '. Bailie also emerged as a radio actor. He played the mad scientist "Taren Capel", a re-incarnation of his earlier work from the 60s series Doctor Who. He has recently been involved in two Big Finish Productions audio dramas playing the "Celestial Toymaker". Bailie also works as a professional photographer, portraiture and landscapes being his speciality. He has established a YouTube channel mdebailes to which he uploads readings and performance excerpts.
