Anthony Bate is an English actor.

He is possibly best known for his role as Oliver Lacon in the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 adaptations of the John le Carré

John le Carré

David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...

 novels Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...

and Smiley's People

Smiley's People

Smiley's People is a spy novel by John le Carré, published in 1979. Featuring British master-spy George Smiley, it is the third and final novel of the "Karla Trilogy", following Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy...

.

Other credits include: An Englishman's Castle

An Englishman's Castle

An Englishman's Castle is a BBC television serial first broadcast in 1978 which was written by Philip Mackie. The story was set in an alternate history 1970s, in which Nazi Germany has won World War II and occupied England...

, Spindoe

Spindoe

Spindoe is a British television series which was shown on ITV in the spring of 1968. It was named after the lead character, Alec Spindoe, a South London gangster; the plot of the series showed how Spindoe re-established his gangland empire after he had been supplanted during a term of imprisonment,...

, Beasts

Beasts (TV series)

Beasts is a series of six television plays by Manx writer Nigel Kneale, unconnected but for a bestial horror theme, made by ATV for ITV in the United Kingdom and broadcast in 1976.-Episodes:-External links:* at the BFI's Screenonline...

, Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series that ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.-Overview:...

, The Saint

The Saint (TV series)

The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...

, The Avengers

The Avengers (TV series)

The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...

, Prime Suspect, A Touch of Frost and Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...

.

Early life

He was born the son of Hubert George Cookson Bate (died 1986) and Cecile Marjorie Canadine (died 1973). Bate was educated at King Edward VI School, Stourbridge, and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama

Central School of Speech and Drama

The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...

 (Gold medal). During his National Service he served with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve 1945-47.

Theatre

Since his professional theatre debut in 1953, Bate's theatre roles have included: first West End appearance in Inherit the Wind (St Martin’s) 1960, Treasure Island (Mermaid) 1960, Happy Family (Hampstead) 1966, Much Ado About Nothing and Silence (RSC Aldwych) 1969. Find Your Way Home (Open Space Theatre) 1970, Eden End (tour) 1972, Economic Necessity (Haymarket Leicester) 1973, Getting Away with Murder (Comedy) 1976, Shadow Box (Cambridge) 1979, The Old Jest (tour) 1980, A Flea in her Ear (Plymouth Theatre Co) 1980. Little Lies (Wyndhams) 1983, Master Class (tour) 1984, The Deep Blue Sea (Theatre Royal Haymarket) 1988, Relative Values (Chichester Festival Theatre and Savoy) 1993-94. He has been a member of BAFTA since 1985.

Television

Bate's first television appearance was in 1955 and since then has appeared as: James in Pinter’s The Collection, Rogojin in The Idiot, MacDuff in Macbeth, Javert in Les Misérables, the title role in Grady (a trilogy), T H Huxley in Darwin’s Bulldog, Nikolai in Fathers and Sons, Creon in King Oedipus, Victor Hugo in Ego Hugo, Harry Paynter in Intimate Strangers, The Dutch Train Hijack 1976, Dr Dorn in The Seagull 1977, Kim Philby in Philby Burgess and Maclean 1977 (nominated Best Actor Monte Carlo Festival 1978), An Englishman’s Castle 1978, title role in The Trial of Uri Urlov 1978, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 1978, Crime and Punishment 1979, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore 1979, The Human Crocodile 1980, Smiley’s People 1981, A Woman Called Golda (with Ingrid Bergman) 1981, J A D Ingres in Artists and Models 1983, War and Remembrance 1986, Game Set and Match 1987,Countdown to War 1989, Medics 1991 and 1992, Prime Suspect 1994, Rebecca 1996, A Touch of Frost 1996, Bodyguards 1996, Silent Witness 1997, Midsomer Murders 2000;

Films

Films include: Dentist in the Chair

Dentist in the Chair

Dentist in the Chair is a 1960 British comedy film, directed by Don Chaffey and starring Bob Monkhouse, Ronnie Stevens, Eric Barker and Vincent Ball. The screenplay was written by Val Guest, based on a novel by Matthew Finch...

(1960), Payroll

Payroll (film)

Payroll is a 1961 British crime thriller starring Michael Craig, and based on the novel by Derek Bickerton. The story is about a gang of villains that stage a wages robbery, which turns into a disaster. Most of the film was shot on location in and around Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne...

(1961), A Prize of Arms

A Prize of Arms

A Prize of Arms is a 1962 British crime film directed by Cliff Owen and starring Stanley Baker, Helmut Schmid, Patrick Magee and Tom Bell with early appearances by several actors including Fulton Mackay, Tom Adams and Rodney Bewes...

(1962), Stopover Forever (1964), Davy Jones' Locker (1966), Ghost Story

Ghost Story

-Literature:* Ghost story, a story or tale involving ghosts* Ghost Story , a 1979 horror novel by Peter Straub* Ghost Story , a novel in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher...

(1973), Bismark

Bismark

Bismark is a town in the Stendal district, in the historic Altmark region of northern Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approx. west of Stendal....

(1975), Give My Regards to Broad Street

Give My Regards to Broad Street

Give My Regards to Broad Street is the soundtrack album to the 1984 film of the same name. Unlike the film, the album was successful, achieving #1 in the UK chart and its lead single "No More Lonely Nights" was BAFTA and Golden Globe award nominated....

(1982), Exploits at West Poley (1985), Eminent Domaine (1990), A Flight of Fancy (2002), Nowhere in Africa

Nowhere in Africa

Nowhere in Africa is a 2001 German film directed by Caroline Link and based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Stefanie Zweig. It tells the story of a Jewish family that emigrates to Kenya during World War II to escape the Nazis and run a farm...

(2003) (winner Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language).

Personal life

On 22 May 1954, he married Diana Fay, the daughter of Kenneth Alfred Charles Cawes Watson (d 1939), of Seaview, Isle of Wight. His 2 sons are Gavin Watson born 1961 and Mark Hewitt born 1963.

External links