{"id":462756,"date":"2026-06-05T18:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462756\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T18:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:20:08","slug":"anthony-head-dead-buffy-ted-lasso-actor-was-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462756\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Head Dead: ‘Buffy,’ ‘Ted Lasso’ Actor Was 72"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAnthony Head, the British actor who guided Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/a> as the heroine\u2019s Watcher, Rupert Giles, has died.<\/p>\n

\n\tHead, 72, died of complications from pneumonia, his daughters Daisy and Emily said in a statement to the Press Association in the U.K. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is with heavy hearts that we announce the death of our extraordinary father, Anthony Head,\u201d their statement says<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cHe passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many. We know how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues, and fans of the shows he was in \u2014 he loved his job very much, and he always considered himself incredibly lucky, to have been able to work alongside such exceptionally talented people, in such wonderful productions, across a career that spanned several decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHead\u2019s breakout role came in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV adaptation by creator Joss Whedon of the 1992 movie of the same name. As Giles, the bookish but steely Watcher, he helped guide Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) as she came to terms with being the Slayer and supported her missions. More recently, he played Rupert Mannion, the philandering ex-husband of AFC Richmond owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) in Apple TV\u2019s Ted Lasso<\/a>. His credits also included Little Britain and Merlin in the U.K. and a number of stage roles.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthony Stewart Head was born Feb. 20, 1954, in London to documentary filmmaker Seafield Head and actress Helen Shingler; his older brother is actor and singer Murray Head (\u201cOne Night in Bangkok\u201d from Chess). He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and had early roles in a 1978 production of Godspell in London, the film Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover and a number of guest appearances in British TV series.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn early breakthrough came in a series of TV commercials<\/a> for Gold Blend coffee in the U.K., where he and Sharon Maughan played a man and woman who began a slow-burn romance over a series of coffee dates. Versions of the ads were also made in the United States for Taster\u2019s Choice, with Head and Maughan again playing the couple. <\/p>\n

\n\tHis role in Buffy won him legions of fans in the U.S. \u2014\u00a0but also meant he was away from his family for long stretches as he filmed the show in Los Angeles. \u201cMy partner Sarah [Fisher] and the girls \u2014 Daisy was four and Emily was six \u2014 stayed in England,\u201d he told The Guardian<\/a> in a 2016 interview. I\u2019d try to go home to them every three or four weeks. The production team would work dates around me, and every time I got the chance to have six days clear, I\u2019d get on a plane. Anything less than six days was disruptive \u2014 I\u2019d have to leave as soon as they were getting used to having me around. I\u2019d hit the ground running, take over from Sarah, take the girls to school and do as much as I could before I had to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPost-Buffy, Head also starred in the BBC dramedy Manchild and Channel 4\u2019s Free Agents (along with its short-lived NBC remake)\u00a0in the U.K. and Syfy\u2019s Dominion and ABC\u2019s Still Star-Crossed in the U.S., along with The Iron Lady opposite Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent a host of guest and recurring roles on TV. <\/p>\n

\n\tHead is survived by his daughters. Fisher, and animal welfare advocate, died in late December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Head, the British actor who guided Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the heroine\u2019s Watcher, Rupert Giles, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[93868,430,156,111,139,69,18995,127369],"class_list":["post-462756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-obituaries","tag-ted-lasso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}