Earl Cameron
Pool of London - 1951
“I never saw myself as a pioneer. It was only later, looking back, that it occurred to me that I was.”
Earl Cameron was a veteran TV and film actor who blazed a trail for black performers in Britain
Cameron was born in Bermuda and lived the majority of his life in Britain, and was the first black actor to take on a leading role in a British film – 1951’s Pool of London
He had previously appeared in films – as an extra – as far back as 1944 in Candlelight in Algeria. He was also in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) and Captain Horatio Hornblower R. N. (1951).
But it was his sensitive performance as the Jamaican merchant seaman Johnny in Pool of London that launched him into a career as Britain’s first home-grown, non-American black movie star.
Cameron gave memorable performances in The Heart Within (1957), Sapphire (1959) and Flame in the Streets (1961) and s James Bond’s chauffeur in Thunderball (1965),
Throughout the 1960s, TV viewers became familiar with Earl in a range of popular dramas including Armchair Theatre, Danger Man, Emergency – Ward 10, Doctor Who (The Tenth Planet), and The Prisoner.
More recently, he appeared in such films as The Queen (2006), as the portrait artist, and Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010).
Earl recently passed away aged 102. Back in 1997, he reflected on his acting career saying: “My experiences of theatre, television, films have been wonderful. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”
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