Earl Cameron
Actor
SCREEN “PIONEER” Earl Cameron, who has died at 102, was one of the first black actors to make it in British cinema.
Cameron’s career began in 1951 with Pool of London, credited as being the first British film to feature an interracial relationship. His later credits included playing Pinder in Bond movie Thunderball, Inception, and Sir Sidney Poitier’s 1973 movie A Warm December.
In 2017, Cameron told The Guardian: “I never saw myself as a pioneer. It was only later, looking back, that it occurred to me that I was.” He told the newspaper: “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.”
His TV credits included Doctor Who in 1966, as well as Danger Man, Dixon of Dock Green, The Zoo Gang, The Prisoner, The Dark Man and Lovejoy.
Born in Bermuda, he joined the British merchant navy and arrived in the UK in 1939.
He told the Royal Gazette he made his debut in the chorus of Chu Chin Chow, a West End show, when he was working as a dishwasher at a restaurant and they needed someone quickly.
The Royal Gazette said Cameron lived in Warwickshire with his second wife Barbara. He was made a CBE in 2009.