Hamilton Camp

(October 30, 1934 – October 2, 2005) was an English-born American singer, songwriter, and actor.

Early life
Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister(s). He became a child actor in films and onstage. He originally performed under the name Bob Camp and later changed his name to Hamilton after being opened in Subud. For a few years, he billed himself as Hamid Hamilton Camp; in this time period, he was leader of a group called Skymonters that released an album in 1973 on Elektra.

Career

Camp’s debut as a folk singer was at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960; and his first recording, with Bob Gibson, was Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn, also from 1960. Over the next four decades he maintained a dual career as a musician/songwriter and as an actor. He appeared in nearly one hundred films and television programs. Camp is probably best known, however, as the author of the song “Pride of Man”, which was recorded by a number of artists, notably Quicksilver Messenger Service, who had a pop hit with it, and Gordon Lightfoot, who included it as one of three covers on his first record. In addition, an early Gibson & Camp gospel song, “You Can Tell the World” was the opening track on Simon and Garfunkel’s first album, Wednesday Morning 3 A.M.

He also performed with the San Francisco satirical comedy troupe The Committee and appeared in a number of stage productions, including a 2004 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl.

His television work includes a supporting role on He & She, a sitcom starring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, which ran for one season in 1967-1968. He also guest starred on popular television shows such as M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Twilight Zone, Starsky and Hutch, Andy Griffith Show, Cheers, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (as the older H.G. Wells), and twice appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Leck, a Ferengi. He also had the misfortune of being a “regular” on three series that were each cancelled after only one episode: Turn-On (1969), Co-Ed Fever and McGurk: A Dog’s Life, both in (1979). In the opening season of WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), Camp guest starred in episode 5 as Del Murdock, owner of Del’s Stereo and Sound. Camp also appeared as a semi-regular on Too Close for Comfort (1980) as Arthur Wainright, the adventurous, youth-oriented boss of Ted Knight’s Henry Rush.

He was the voice of Fenton Crackshell, aka GizmoDuck, on the Disney animated series DuckTales. He played the role of old Malcolm Corley in LucasArts’s graphic adventure Full Throttle. He also voiced the Prophet of Mercy in the 2004 video game Halo 2. He also voiced Count Dracula in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, and became Disney Studio’s new voice of Merlin, following the death of Karl Swenson.

Camp’s final work was on the film Hard Four in early 2005, as well as a musical album produced by James Lee Stanley called Sweet Joy, completed just days before his death.

He died suddenly of a heart attack on October 2, 2005 at the age of seventy, and is survived by six children and thirteen grandchildren.