Gary Files (born 13 September 1938[3]) is an Australian-Canadian actor, theatre director and radio writer who has worked in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
He subsequently joined John Hirsch's Manitoba Theatre Company for one season, during which time he appeared in The Taming of the Shrew with Len Cariou, and Mother Courage with Zoe Caldwell.
Returning from Europe, he joined the company of the Bristol Old Vic,[5] where he stayed for a season and a half performing leads and supports in Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, Man and Superman, Bartholomew Fair, Andorra, The Creeper and finally A Tale of Two Cities.
He also worked at Colchester Rep. for several productions, played Marat in The Promise for the Liverpool Rep., and finally appeared in the West End rock musical Your Very Own Thing at the Comedy Theatre, before returning to Canada.
His ability with accents proved very useful when he was invited to join the team of actors voicing Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation features at Century 21 Productions: Files started with the film Thunderbird 6, then went on to perform voices for the TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (including Captain Magenta), Joe 90 and The Secret Service (as Matthew, one of the lead characters), and also appeared in the pilot episode - "Identified" - of Anderson's live-action series UFO.
On returning to Canada, Files joined the company of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre for three plays Hail Skrawdyke, Harry Noon and Night and The Snow Queen.
There followed Angie in A Very Quiet Street with Keenan Wynn for Sterno Productions and finally Hardin in the TV series The Frankie Howerd Show for CBC Television.
Back to Melbourne for the Playbox Theatre Company to do Edgar in The Dance of Death then Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class, which also went to the Adelaide Festival.
then Mickey in Hurley Burley for the M.T.C., Stalin in Master Class for the H.V.T.C., George Coppin in Occupation Comedian for the Writer's Theatre, Gerald in Woman in Mind for the M.T.C.
Files has appeared in several Australian films, Money Movers, The Club, Evil Angels (A Cry in the Dark),[6] Mull and Dead End.
He has appeared in over 35 television series and features for Australian television, the most memorable being Desert Foxes, Corp. Andy Edwards in Rusty Bugles, Punishment, Fred Ferguson in Prisoner, Slasher Grey in The Great Bookie Robbery, Tom Ramsay in the soap Neighbours (in 1986, and again in 1990–91 and returned for a guest stint in the show's 30th year, 2015), Fred Daly in The True Believers, Frankie in Rafferty's Rules, Zeke La Russo in Inside Running, Sam McHeath in Skirts, Henry Barnes in Correlli, Kevin Howard in two series of Pig's Breakfast, Fergus Marshall in the TV series MDA, Wally Chubb in "City Homicide" and 'Doc' Evatt in "I Spry".
Files started directing in 1993 when he co-founded the Period Pieces Company in an effort to revive classical theatre in Melbourne as it should be experienced.
This was a company of Melbourne's finest actors (often locked into television series) who did performed readings of the classics with a complete cast – irrespective of the number of parts called for.
He wrote the four-part comedy serial Uncle Vinny's Wireless for ABC–Radio, for which he won an AWGIE Award from the Australian Writers' Guild.