Eric Porter

Eric Richard Porter (8 April 1928 – 15 May 1995) was an English actor who worked extensively across stage, film, and television. Born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to Richard John Porter, a bus conductor, and Phoebe Elizabeth Porter (née Spall), he was steered toward a technical career by his parents and attended the Technical College in Wimbledon before taking employment as a joint-solderer at the Marconi Telegraph and Wireless company. He made his stage debut at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in 1945 at the age of seventeen.

Porter's early stage career included the title role in Ben Jonson's Volpone at the Bristol Old Vic in 1955. He appeared on Broadway in 1958 in the drama The Visit, representing one of his notable transatlantic credits. The following year, his performance in Ibsen's Rosmersholm at the Royal Court Theatre earned him the London Evening Standard award. In 1960 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he played Ferdinand in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and, in 1962, Iachimo in Cymbeline. His RSC work also encompassed roles including Ulysses, Macbeth, Leontes, Malvolio, Shylock, King Lear, Henry IV, and Barabas in Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. He continued to perform on stage in later decades, winning a second Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor in 1988 for his role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

On television, Porter became widely recognized for his portrayal of the solicitor Soames Forsyte in the BBC's 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, a role that brought him international prominence and a BAFTA Best Actor award. His subsequent television work included Thomas Danforth in the 1980 BBC production of The Crucible, Polonius in the BBC Shakespeare series production of Hamlet that same year starring Derek Jacobi, Neville Chamberlain in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981), Count Bronowsky in The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Professor Moriarty opposite Jeremy Brett in two episodes of Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — The Red-Headed League and The Final Problem — also in 1984, and Fagin in the BBC's 1985 adaptation of Oliver Twist. His final screen appearance was as the painter James Player in a 1994 television remake of Dennis Potter's play Message for Posterity.

Porter's film credits spanned three decades and included Julianus in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Josef Terboven in The Heroes of Telemark (1965), Pyotr Stolypin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra (1972), General von Greim in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), Colonel Rodin in The Day of the Jackal (1973), and Karenin in Anna Karenina (1977), among others. In 1970 he appeared as a guest on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special, performing "If They Could See Me Now" from Sweet Charity alongside the comedy duo.

Porter died of colon cancer in London on 15 May 1995 at the age of sixty-seven. He was originally from London, England.