The man who guided Buffy Summers in her television battle against the undead has died.
Anthony Stewart Head was 72 years old.
Head’s daughters announced his death in a statement to the Press Association, The Mirror reported.
“He passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family. It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many," the statement said.
The Associated Press reported that Head first became famous in the 1980s as part of the will-they, won’t they couple in ads for Nescafé instant coffee.
But he found international fame as the librarian and watcher, Rupert Giles, on the television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” who trained Sara Michelle Gellar’s Buffy.
He was also introduced to a new generation as Rupert Mannion in “Ted Lasso,” the ex-husband of Hannah Waddingham’s Rebecca Welton and former owner of the AFC Richmond soccer team, the BBC reported.
Head also appeared in “Merlin,” “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters,” “The Iron Lady,” and as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Tribute Show.”
Head’s death comes months after his longtime partner, Sara Fisher, unexpectedly died in January at the age of 61.
His death also follows the deaths of “Buffy” costars Michelle Trachtenberg and Nicholas Brendon.
Trachtenberg died in 2025 from complications of diabetes mellitus.
Brendon died in March at the age of 54 of atherosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease with acute pneumonia and previous myocardial infarction as contributing factors, a coroner found.
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