Martyn Sanderson was a veteran New Zealand character actor from the 1960s. One of his later roles was as the gate keeper of Bree in Peter Jackson’s 2001 film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. He allowed Frodo and his fellow Hobbits entry to Bree before being trampled to death by the pursuing Nazgul.
Sanderson was born near Granity on the West Coast of New Zealand on February 24, 1938. He moved to Australia in the mid-1960s, where he worked in film and television as an actor and writer. He was seen in numerous films over the next three decades, including the mystical 1983 feature The Lost Tribe.
He also worked frequently in television. He was featured as Thespius in the 1994 tele-films Hercules and the Circle of Fire (1994) and Hercules in the Underworld (1994), and guest-starred in various roles in several episodes of the series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys starring Kevin Sorbo in 1995. Sanderson starred as Grandpa Gordon in the 2001 surreal television series Atlantis High. Set in a high school built on the site of the lost city of Atlantis, the off-beat series included aliens, super-heroes, and secret agents.
Sanderson died at his home in Otaki, New Zealand, on October 14, 2009, at the age of 71.
Poor guy! What a legend!