Norman Bowler

Norman Clifford Bowler (born 1 August 1932) is an English actor, best known for his role as Frank Tate in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale. Early life Norman Clifford Bowler was born on 1 August 1932 in London, England. His father, Clifford Norman Bowler (1899–1993), a watchmaker and jeweller, had a shop at 54 Mill Lane, West Hampstead, London, where he is commemorated by a plaque. Career Bowler was a regular star of the ATV soap series Harpers West One, playing the character of Roger Pike, and played a variety of bit parts and single episode roles on television throughout the 1960s, including an episode of Gideon's Way. He featured in an episode of The Avengers in 1967 entitled "Dead Man's Treasure" and starred alongside James Caan in the 1968 war film Submarine X-1, about World War II British midget submarines. From 1966 to 1976, Bowler played Det. Chief Inspector Harry Hawkins for the entire run of the BBC TV police drama Softly, Softly (later Softly, Softly: Taskforce). He also appeared as Titinius in Julius Caesar (1970), as Saturninus in Jesus of Nazareth (1977), as Bill Smugs in The Island of Adventure (1982), and as Moose in the Terence Hill film They Call Me Renegade (1987). After a continuing role in Crossroads from 1986 to 1987, he later played the part of Frank Tate in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale from November 1989 to May 1997. Frank's death was one of the most iconic episodes of Emmerdale, when he was left to die of a heart attack on the floor of his beloved Home Farm.