Paul Soles

Paul Soles (August 11, 1930 – May 26, 2021) was a Canadian actor, voice performer, and television personality born in Toronto to Lillian (Goodfellow) and Arthur L. Soles. His family were Jewish emigrants from Poland and Lithuania, and he grew up with two siblings. His cousin, Bernard "Bunny" Cowan, was a fellow performer with whom he collaborated on the original 1960s Spider-Man animated series and the 1967 children's series Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse.

Soles made his first screen appearance on CFPL in 1953, launching a career that spanned more than six decades. At CFPL-TV in London, Ontario, he also worked as a documentary producer, contributing to a series called The World Around Us and traveling with film crews to Great Britain in the early 1960s to document aspects of British life. He hosted the CFPL television game show Take Your Choice for one year in the early 1960s, and later co-hosted the CBC public affairs program Take 30 for 18 seasons alongside hosts including Anna Cameron and Adrienne Clarkson. He also served as host of the CBC Television late-night comedy talk show Canada After Dark.

Among his most recognized roles, Soles voiced Hermey the misfit elf in the Rankin/Bass television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964, and he remained one of the last surviving members of that production's voice cast. He also provided the voice of the title character in the animated series Spider-Man, which premiered in 1967, and voiced characters in the 1966 animated television series The Marvel Super Heroes. His voice work extended across numerous other productions, including Rocket Robin Hood, The King Kong Show, The Smokey Bear Show, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Festival of Family Classics, JoJo's Circus, Noah's Animals, and The Trolls and the Christmas Express, among others. He narrated The Wonderful Stories of Professor Kitzel, voiced The Commissioner in the 2005 animated series Funpak, supplied the voice of Dr. Reboux in the 2005 animated film adaptation of Johanna Spyri's Heidi, and contributed to the Academy Award-nominated animated documentary The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein. Beginning in 2011, he voiced the recurring character Maxwell Finnwich on Detentionaire, and later voiced Barnabas Dinklelot in the animated series Mysticons from 2017 to 2018.

His on-screen acting work included playing the role of the Lawbreaker on the CBC panel quiz show This Is the Law during the 1970s and portraying Costas Stavros on the Canadian soap opera Riverdale. His film credits include Ticket to Heaven (1981), Just the Way You Are (1984), The Gunrunner (1989) opposite Kevin Costner, and The Score (2001), in which he played Danny, a Montreal Customs House janitor. He appeared as Stanley, a pizza shop owner, in The Incredible Hulk (2008). In 2001, Soles stepped into the role of Shylock in the Stratford Festival of Canada production of The Merchant of Venice after Al Waxman, who had been originally cast in the part, died. His Broadway career included an appearance in Macbeth in 1988.

Soles received a Gemini Award in 2006 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Series for his work in Terminal City. He received a 2017 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Digital Production for his role in the CBC Comedy web series My 90-Year-Old Roommate, in which he was still performing as of 2016. Soles died of natural causes in his sleep at his home in Toronto on May 26, 2021, at the age of 90.