Career
Kay began his working life as a reporter for the Bolton Evening News, and a stringer for the Manchester Guardian. He was conscripted in 1946 and started acting in the army. He appeared in hundreds of television productions including Emmerdale Farm, The Champions, The Cellar and the Almond Tree, Clayhanger, A Very British Coup, Casualty, Casualty 1909, Doctors, Z-Cars, Coronation Street and Foyle"s War.
He portrayed Captain Stanley Lord of the Steamship Californian in the British Broadcasting Corporation dramatisation "Trial by Inquiry: Titanic" in 1967.
And he played the bandit leader Cordova in Zorro television episode "Alejandro Rides Again" in 1991 which was filmed in Madrid, Spain. Kay also gave a sympathetic performance as Korporal Hartwig in an early episode of "Colditz".
He appeared four times in the Doctor Who series in various roles, most notably as Saladin in the classic Doctor Who story The Crusade in 1965, alongside William Hartnell and Julian Glover. He also appeared in the serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964), The Faceless Ones (1967) and Colony in Space (1971).
In 2006, he guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio adventure Night Thoughts.
His best known film appearance was his turn as a Bolshevik leader in. (He commuted between Madrid and London to play Saladin during this stint) Stage He also acted extensively on the stage. In 1952, for the Nottingham Representative, he learned, rehearsed, and played Macbeth in less than 24 hours.
In 1984, he played Shylock in a British Council tour of Asia, ending in Baghdad, in the middle of the Iraq/Iran war.
He twice appeared at the Finborough Theatre, London - in 2006 in After Haggerty and in 2010 in Dream of the Dog.
