Eric Porter

Eric Richard Porter (8 April 192815 May 1995) was an English actor of stage, film and television. Early life Porter was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to bus conductor Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth (née Spall). His parents hoped he would become an electrical engineer, so he was educated at the Technical College in Wimbledon, then worked for the Marconi Telegraph and Wireless company as a joint-solderer. He made his stage debut at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in 1945 at the age of 17. Career In 1955, Porter played the title role in Ben Jonson's Volpone at the Bristol Old Vic. He won the London Evening Standard award in 1959 for his performance in Ibsen's Rosmersholm at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1960 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company; that year, he played Ferdinand in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. In 1962, he performed as Iachimo in Cymbeline. Other roles included Ulysses, Macbeth, Leontes, Malvolio, Shylock, King Lear and Henry IV, as well as Barabas in Marlowe's Jew of Malta. Porter was seen as the tortured solicitor Soames Forsyte in the BBC drama The Forsyte Saga (1967). The series was a huge international success, and his role, for which he won a BAFTA Best Actor award, also made him a star. Porter was one of the guests on the Morecambe and Wise 1970 Christmas Special, performing If They Could See Me Now from Sweet Charity with the duo, revealing his song and dance skills with panache. Porter's 1981 portrayal of Neville Chamberlain in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years won critical praise. He played Count Bronowsky in The Jewel in the Crown; he was also seen as Fagin in the 1985 BBC version of Oliver Twist; as Thomas Danforth in the 1980 BBC production of The Crucible; and as Professor Moriarty opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes stories The Red-Headed League and The Final Problem (both 1984). He also played Polonius in a 1980 television production of Hamlet, made as part of the BBC Shakespeare series, and starring Derek Jacobi in the title role.