A highly respected Shakespearean for five decades until his death of colon cancer in 1995, classical actor Eric Porter’s claim to international fame would, ironically, be outside of that realm, with one superb portrayal in one superb miniseries, The Forsyte Saga(1967), in which he won the BAFTA award. The son of Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall, Porter first attended Wimbledon Technical College before stepping onto the stage as a walk-on in a production of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” in February 1945 at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. He continued in repertory until joining the National Service with the RAF during the war years. Early post-war credits would include touring with Sir Donald Wolfit and Sir Barry Jackson in their prestigious companies. Favorite roles in his repertoire would eventually include “Macbeth”, “King Lear” and “Uncle Vanya”. He won London’s Evening Standard Award for “Rosmersholm” in 1959. Joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960, he became a prime, esteemed resident for decades. Porter made his film debut in mid-career with The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) at age 36, but it was the BBC that made him an international favorite as the ever-proper but intensely emotional and unhinged “Soames Forsyte”. Taboos were broken on that series with a violent rape scene that had people talking for months. Along with the newly acquired fame came leads in lesser films such as The Lost Continent(1968) and Hands of the Ripper (1971), adding class to both those atmospheric horrors. On the plus side, Porter engaged himself frequently in quality TV miniseries fare includingAnna Karenina (1977), The Jewel in the Crown (1984) and Oliver Twist (1985) (as Fagin), while transferring many classics to TV as well, with “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “Man and Superman” and “Macbeth” being but a few.
Eric Porter Biography / Wiki
| Name | Eric Porter |
| Also Know | |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Acting |
| Place of Birth | Shepard’s Bush, London, UK |
| Date of Birth | 1928-04-08 |
| Age(as in 2022) | 67 |
| Deathday | 1995-05-15 |
Eric Porter Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| The Lost Continent | Lansen | 1968-06-19 | An eclectic group of characters set sail on Captain Lansen’s leaky cargo ship in an attempt to escape their various troubles. When a violent storm s… |
| Hands of the Ripper | Dr. John Pritchard | 1971-10-17 | A series of murders occur that mirror those committed by the Whitechapel Ripper. Through his experiments with psychoanalysis Dr Pritchard discovers a … |
| The Belstone Fox | Asher Smith | 1973-01-01 | Based on the novel “The Ballad of the Belstone Fox”, this heartwarming film chronicles the life of a fox much smarter than the dogs that hunt him. In … |
| Message for Posterity | James Player | 1994-10-28 | A version of Dennis Potter’s play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped…. |
| Oliver Twist | Fagin | 1985-01-01 | Adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens…. |
| The Shetland Experience | Narrator (voice) | 1977-01-01 | The environmental measures taken by the oil industry at the Sullom Voe terminal in the Shetlands…. |
| The Winslow Boy | Arthur Winslow | 1977-01-16 | The term at Osborne Naval College is not yet over. Why, therefore, has cadet Ronnie Winslow returned home? And why, moreover, is he hiding in the gard… |
| The Crucible | 1980-01-01 | An adaptation of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, concerning the Salem witch trials…. | |
| Callan | Hunter | 1974-01-01 | David Callan, secret agent, is called back to the service after his retirement, to handle the assasination of a german businessman, but Callan refuses… |
| Churchill and the Generals | Gen. Sir Alan Brooke | 1981-03-05 | The complicated relationship between Winston Churchill and the leaders of the British army during World War II…. |
| Separate Tables | Major Pollock / John Malcolm | 1970-03-15 | A play by Terence Rattigan about the stories of several people staying at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth which features dining at “Separate Tables.”… |
| The Last Invasion | Harold | 1966-08-24 | A film following Harold II at the Battle of Hastings… |
| Antony and Cleopatra | Enobarbus | 1972-03-18 | Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, a historical drama that attempts to bring an epic visual style to the Bard’s original stage play. Th… |
| Morecambe & Wise: Christmas Specials | 2007-11-12 | Running from 1969 until 1977, the BBC Christmas shows were usually on Christmas Day. These classic sketches revolved around famous guest stars, such a… | |
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Problem | Professor Moriarty | 1985-09-29 | Holmes and Watson travel to Europe to escape Moriarty’s vengeance…. |
| Kaleidoscope | Harry Dominion | 1966-07-01 | Barney Lincoln is a rambling gambling man who scores sensational wins at poker and chemin de fer because he has succeeded in marking the original plat… |
| Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? | Dr. Nicholson | 1980-03-30 | This intriguing story is set in the 1930s at a country house, where two amateur sleuths, Bobby Jones and Lady Frankie Derwent, try to unravel the myst… |
| Little Lord Fauntleroy | Mr. Havisham | 1980-11-25 | Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric’s grandfather, the Earl of D… |
| Hamlet | Polonius | 1980-05-25 | Hamlet comes home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father’s ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Then… |
| The Sin Bin | Stanley Wilkinson | 1981-03-17 | TV play set in an experimental self-rehabilitations unit at a British Prison, where six lifers participate in group therapy…. |
| The Thirty Nine Steps | Chief Superintendent Lomas | 1978-11-04 | The year is 1914 and Richard Hannay, Mining Engineer who is visiting Britain for a short time before returning to South Africa, is shocked when one of… |
| Hitler: The Last Ten Days | Generalfeldmarschall Robert Ritter von Greim | 1973-04-19 | Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provi… |
| Hennessy | Tobin | 1975-12-31 | Former Irish Republican Army member Niall Hennessy lives in Belfast, Ireland, with his wife and daughter amid the ongoing Irish-British conflict. Thou… |
| The Heroes of Telemark | Terboven | 1965-11-22 | Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy w… |
| The Heroes of Telemark: Location report from Norway | 2003-10-31 | Over one hour of black-and-white location footage and interviews with the stars and director, all staged outdoors in manifestly frigid conditions. Man… | |
| The Fall of the Roman Empire | Julianus | 1964-03-24 | In the year 180 AD Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has… |
| The Day of the Jackal | Colonel Rodin | 1973-05-15 | An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated g… |
| Nicholas and Alexandra | Stolypin | 1971-11-29 | Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family…. |
| Emma | 1948-05-23 | … | |
| The Wars of the Roses | Henry VII | 1965-04-08 | A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare’s first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the c… |
Credit: TMDB
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