Rick May ‑ a Canadian-American voice actor and theatrical performer, director, and teacher from Seattle, Washington – died of Covid-19 on April 8, 2020.
May provided the English-language voice for Peppy Hare in Star Fox 64 and Soldier in Team Fortress 2, among other video games.
May was born on September 21, 1940. He was raised in Washington and Canada. May attended Roosevelt High School in Seattle and St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
May served in the U.S. military and was stationed in Japan, where he coordinated USO shows in Tokyo. May returned to the Seattle area to serve as the director of the Renton Civic Theatre and Civic Light Opera in Renton, Washington. In one production of the Cotton Patch Gospel in Renton, May played all 21 roles with a variety of voices. He retired from the Renton Civic Theatre in 2001 to begin his own theater company in Kirkland, Washington, and become a full-time actor.
He began voice acting in video games in the late 1990s, including roles as Peppy Hare and Andross in Star Fox 64; various campaign characters, including Genghis Khan, in Age of Empires II; and Soldier in Team Fortress 2.
From 1998 through 2019, Rick May played Inspector Lestrade in the Imagination Theatre radio series The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. He also played Lestrade in the related radio series The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and played various roles in other Imagination Theatre radio dramas. Two episodes of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Rick May, recorded in late 2019, were first broadcast in May 2020.
May performed in numerous roles throughout his theatrical career, including: Brutus (in Julius Caesar), Benjamin Franklin (in 1776), Tevye (in Fiddler on the Roof), Willy Loman (in Death of a Salesman), Alfred Doolittle (in Pygmalion), Theodore Roosevelt (in Bully!), King Henry II (in The Lion in Winter), Captain Hook (in Child in the Night, TV film) and Inspector Lestrade (on radio in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes),
His voice-overs include Peppy Hare and Andross – Star Fox 64 Dr. M – Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves The Soldier – Team Fortress 2 Genghis Khan – Age of Empires II Dadfish and Marty Sardini in Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove. Wingnut in Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't so Frightening. Film.
May appeared in a scene in George Lucas' American Graffiti.
May suffered a stroke in February 2020 and was moved to a nursing home for rehabilitation. On April 8, 2020, it was reported that May had died due to complications related to Covid-19 at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
On May 1, 2020, Valve released an update to Team Fortress 2 adding a tribute to May's voice work as the Soldier in the form of a new main menu theme titled "Saluting The Fallen" (a rendition of Taps), and locking the character image in the main menu to Soldier.