Born to British parents in Malaya, Michael Gough received classical training at the Old Vic Theater, where he made his stage debut in 1936. He acted on Broadway the following year, inaugurating a distinguished stage career on both sides of the Atlantic. Gough did not enter films until after WWII, first performing in the striking Technicolor noir melodrama, done up in period dress, "Blanche Fury" (1947). For the next decade his appearances were intermittent and primarily in historical drama, ranging from "Anna Karenina" (1948) to Laurence Olivier's adaptation of "Richard III" (1956), with Gough as one of the murderers.
With his tall, gaunt frame and brooding looks, marked especially by his thick, prominent eyebrows, Gough has frequently played villains in horror films and melodrama, or austerely British aristocrats or bureaucrats in contemporary dramas and farces. His many Hammer horror film roles began in 1958 when he supported Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in "The Horror of Dracula". Gough has subsequently tended to play uncooperative authority roles, somewhat sympathetic but stuffy figures who don't comprehend the nature of the menace until it's almost too late, or outright villains in films including "The Phantom of the Opera" (1962), "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" (1964), "The Skull" (1965) and "The Legend of Hell House" (1973).
Gough has regularly appeared in TV miniseries including "QB VII" (1974), "Brideshead Revisited" (1982) and "Lace II" (1985). He has continued to be an asset to melodrama, lending his ripe delivery to the delicacy of Joseph Losey's "The Go-Between" (1971), the flamboyance of "The Boys from Brazil" (1978) and the experimental and thematic audacity of Derek Jarman's "Caravaggio" (1986) and "Wittgenstein" (1993). Stage work continued through the years as well, and Broadway audiences saw his talent for camp on display in a Tony-winning performance in "Bedroom Farce" (1979). He was more serious in a later Tony-nominated role as the boss of gay scientist Alan Turing (Derek Jacobi) in the moving "Breaking the Code" (1988). Contemporary filmgoers are likely to know the venerable Gough best for conveying a touch of elderly British loyalty as Alfred the butler in the features "Batman" (1989), "Batman Returns" (1992) and "Batman Forever" (1995).