Earl Cameron

Earlston Jewett Cameron CBE (8 August 19173 July 2020), known as Earl Cameron, was a Bermudian actor who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. After appearing on London's West End stage, he became one of the first black stars in the British film industry.

With his appearance in 1951's Pool of London, Cameron became one of the first black actors to take up a starring role in a British film after Paul Robeson, Nina Mae McKinney and Elisabeth Welch in the 1930s.

According to Screenonline, "Earl Cameron brought a breath of fresh air to the British film industry's stuffy depictions of race relations. Often cast as a sensitive outsider, Cameron gave his characters a grace and moral authority that often surpassed the films' compromised liberal agendas."

He starred alongside Sean Connery in Thunderball (1965). He made appearances in many 1960s British science fiction programmes, including Doctor Who, where he was reportedly one of the first black actors to play an astronaut on television, The Prisoner, and The Andromeda Breakthrough.

Early career Cameron was born in Pembroke, Bermuda, and grew up on Princess Street, Hamilton. His father was a stonemason who died in 1922, after which Cameron's mother took on various jobs to support the family. As a young man, Cameron joined the British Merchant Navy: "I was working on a ship, going from Bermuda to New York and back. I always had a great desire to travel as a kid, and so I transferred to another ship called the Eastern Prince sailing to South America. On our second trip, the war started. ...the British Admiralty sent for the ship, and that brought me to London." He went AWOL, claiming: "I arrived in London on 29 October 1939. I got involved with a young lady and you know the rest. The ship left without me, and the girl walked out too."

In 1945 and 1946, Cameron took on the role of one of the Dukes in the singing trio the Duchess and Two Dukes, which toured with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) to play to British armed forces personnel in India in 1945, and the Netherlands in 1946. In 1946, Cameron went back to Bermuda for five months but then returned to work as an actor in the UK. He took a job on the London stage as an understudy in the play Deep Are the Roots. Written by Arnaud d'Usseau and James Gow, this play was staged at the Wyndham's Theatre in London for six months (featuring Gordon Heath) and then went on tour. It was during this tour that Cameron first met, and worked alongside, Patrick McGoohan during a production of that play in Coventry. In 2012, Cameron participated alongside local actors in Bermuda in a reading of Deep Are the Roots, which the Bermuda Sun described as a play "dear to Earl's heart, for it not only gave him his first break in the West End as Britain's first black actor, but he also met his first wife when he travelled on tour with the production." As Cameron was having problems with his diction, she introduced him to voice coach Amanda Ira Aldridge, the daughter of Ira Aldridge, a black Shakespearian American actor of the 19th century.

Film career Cameron's breakthrough acting role was in Pool of London, a 1951 film directed by Basil Dearden, set in post-war London involving racial prejudice, romance — Cameron's character is a merchant sailor who falls in love with a young white woman, played by Susan Shaw — and a diamond robbery. He won much critical acclaim for his part in the film, which is considered "the first major role for a black actor in a British mainstream film".

Cameron's next major film role was in the 1955 film Simba. In this drama about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, Cameron played the role of Peter Karanja, a doctor trying to reconcile his admiration for Western civilisation with his Kikuyu heritage. That same year Cameron played the Mau Mau general Jeroge in Safari. He also found work hard to come by: "Unless it was specified that this was a part for a black actor, they would never consider a black actor for the part. And they would never consider changing a white part to a black part. So that was my problem. I got mostly small parts, and that was extremely frustrating – not just for me but for other black actors. We had a very hard time getting worthwhile roles." Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963), in which he played Mang; Guns at Batasi (1964), in which he played Captain Abraham; and Battle Beneath the Earth (1967), in which he played Sergeant Seth Hawkins; A Warm December (1973), working with Sidney Poitier and Esther Anderson, in which Cameron played the part of an African ambassador to the UK.

Cameron was considered for the role of Quarrel in Dr. No (1962) by director Terence Young and co-producer Albert R. Broccoli, whom he knew from his Warwick Films work; however, producer Harry Saltzman did not think him suitable for the role and cast John Kitzmiller. They asked Cameron back to the James Bond series for Thunderball (1965), in which he played Bond's Bahamian assistant Pinder. Cameron's performance was praised. The Baltimore Sun wrote: "Earl Cameron is magnificent as the slimy old fraud of a dictator...", and Rolling Stone described his appearance as "subtle and menacing". Philip French in The Observer referred to "that fine Caribbean actor Earl Cameron". He appeared in a cameo as a portrait artist in the 2006 film The Queen (directed by Stephen Frears), alongside Helen Mirren. In 2010 he appeared as "Elderly Bald Man" in the film Inception. In 2013, he appeared as Grandad in the short film Up on the Roof.

Television career Cameron had roles in a wide range of TV shows, but one of his earliest major roles was a starring part in the BBC 1960 TV drama The Dark Man, in which he played a West Indian cab driver in the UK. The show examined the reactions and prejudices he faced in his work. In 1956 he had a smaller part in another BBC drama exploring racism in the workplace, A Man From The Sun, in which he appeared as community leader Joseph Brent, the cast also featuring Errol John, Cy Grant, Colin Douglas and Nadia Cattouse.

Cameron appeared in a range of popular television shows including series Danger Man (Secret Agent in the US) alongside series star Patrick McGoohan. Cameron worked with McGoohan again when he appeared in the TV series The Prisoner as the Haitian supervisor in the episode "The Schizoid Man" (1967). The Zoo Gang, Crown Court (two different stories in 1973, one as Antoine Mbula from the legal department of the Diplomatic Mission of Zaire in episode three of the three part story Wise Child ), Jackanory (a BBC children's series in which he read five of the Brer Rabbit stories in 1971), Dixon of Dock Green, Waking the Dead, Kavanagh QC, Babyfather, EastEnders (a small role as a Mr Lambert), Dalziel and Pascoe, and Lovejoy.

Personal life Cameron married his first wife, Audrey Godowski, in 1959. They had five children. She died in 1994.

From 1963, Cameron was a practitioner of the Baháʼí Faith, joining the religion at the time of the first Baháʼí World Congress, held at London's Royal Albert Hall.

In the mid-to-late 1970s, Cameron stopped acting for a time. He and his family moved to the Solomon Islands, as he sought to dedicate himself more fully to the Bahá'í faith. During this time, he ran an ice cream business in Honiara. Following the death of Audrey in 1994, Cameron returned to the UK and resumed his acting career.

The Bahá'í community held a reception in London in 2007 to honour his 90th birthday. He lived in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England.

At the time of his death, he was married to his second wife, Barbara Bower.

Honours Cameron was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

The Earl Cameron Theatre in Hamilton, Bermuda, was named in his honour at a ceremony he attended there in December 2012.

The University of Warwick awarded Cameron an honorary doctorate in January 2013.

In 2015, the British Film Institute (BFI) featured a special presentation and screening to honour Cameron's work.

In September 2016, he became the first inductee into the Screen Nation "Hall of Frame" at the BFI Southbank, where he was interviewed by Samira Ahmed.

In 2017, Cameron's 100th birthday was marked in Bermuda at an event he attended held at the theatre now named in honour of him.

In 2019, the Earl Cameron Award – for "a Bermudian professional who has demonstrated exceptional passion and talent in the field of theatre, cinematography, film or video production" – was established in his honour by the Bermuda Arts Council.

His children said in a statement: "Our family have been overwhelmed by the outpourings of love and respect we have received at the news of our father's passing … As an artist and as an actor he refused to take roles that demeaned or stereotyped the character of people of colour. He was truly a man who stood by his moral principles and was inspirational."

In the UK, on Twitter, David Harewood described Cameron as a "total legend" and Paterson Joseph wrote: "His generation's pioneering shoulders are what my generation of actors stand on. No shoulders were broader than this gentleman with the voice of god and the heart of a kindly prince."

Filmography