Bermudian actor who challenged screen bias

Earl Cameron, who has died aged 102, was one of the first black actors to win leading roles in British screen dramas, featuring in films such as Simba (1955), Guns at

(1964) and Thunderball (1965), as well as in episodes of Emergency – Ward and

Cameron strove to bring dignity and decency to the parts that came his way, in an era when those parts were often stereotyped or superficial, despite the writers’ good intentions. The one that made most impact was probably his cinematic debut, (1951).

A workaday crime thriller set in London’s docks, it is of interest now chiefly for its sets, which show the capital still scarred by bombing. At the time, however, it caused something of a sensation as the first British film to depict an interracial relationship.

Cameron’s only acting experience at that time had been theatrical and he was grateful to director Basil Dearden for teaching him how to be restrained on camera, rather than projecting. He recently confessed that he had fibbed about his age so as to be cast, shaving off his moustache to make himself look closer to 26 than 33.

The film led to other roles, among them the Mau Mau dramas and

(1955). Yet while Cameron eventually had five children to educate, he tried to avoid taking parts as villains.

In (1959, also directed by Dearden), which explored racial prejudice, he was a doctor, and five years later, in an army officer opposite Richard Attenborough and Mia Farrow. Having been considered for the part of the Jamaican fisherman Quarrel in he played the part of James Bond’s local contact Pinder in the Nassauset with Sean Connery.

The youngest of the six children of a stonemason, Earlston Jerusalem Cameron was born at Pembroke, Bermuda. In his early 20s, he joined the Merchant Navy and docked in London soon after the start of World War II.

‘‘I got involved with a young lady and you know the rest,’’ he recalled. ‘‘The ship left without me, and the girl walked out too.’’ His colour made it almost impossible for him to find work, and he starved through the winter until being taken on as a cafe dishwasher.

He caught pneumonia and was treated for months in hospital. Soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk were in the same ward and made bets on when he would die. Late in life, doctors told him that he had in effect survived for almost 80 years on one lung.

Through a friend, he heard that someone was wanted to fill in for an actor in the chorus of Chu Chin Chow, the longrunning musical version of Ali Baba and

Although petrified by his first stage experiences, by the end of the war Cameron was touring overseas.

While he experienced little direct racism in the theatre, he would have doors shut in his face when looking for digs. After greater recognition came, he was never tempted to try Hollywood, having been told by Sidney Poitier that discrimination there was worse.

He appeared in several television plays that examined race relations, and later in programmes such as Danger Man, The Prisoner, Crown Court and Lovejoy. In the four-part Doctor Who story ‘‘The Tenth Planet’’ – the first to feature the Cybermen, the last to feature William Hartnell, and the first to introduce the idea of a Doctor who regenerates – Cameron’s character is thought to be the first black astronaut seen on screen.

After a stint in Italian cinema, his career faltered. He joined the Baha’i faith, crediting it with curbing his fondness for drink, and in the 1980s he moved to the Solomon Islands to open a centre for the religion, and an ice-cream parlour.

After the death of his first wife in 1994, he returned to Britain. In 2005, he had a major role as an African dictator in the UN-set thriller with Nicole Kidman. He was also seen as a portrait painter in (2006), and in (2010).

He married twice, and had six children, who all survive him. – actor b August 8, 1917 d July 3, 2020