Television & radioObituary

Anthony Bate obituary

Actor best known for British television espionage dramas

The actor Anthony Bate, who has died aged 84, had many starring roles on British television but will be best remembered for three espionage dramas. He was firmly at the centre of the action as the double agent Kim Philby in Philby, Burgess and Maclean (1977). The writer Ian Curteis's feature-length account of the Cambridge spy-ring saga also featured Derek Jacobi (Burgess) and Michael Culver (Maclean) as the traitors passing American atomic secrets to the KGB.

Two years later, Bate played the civil servant Oliver Lacon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Arthur Hopcraft's seven-part adaptation of John le Carré's novel. Lacon, the affable but businesslike undersecretary – looking after the interests of "the minister" and referred to by one character as "Whitehall's head prefect" – was first seen welcoming to his country cottage George Smiley (Alec Guinness), the former deputy head of intelligence being brought out of retirement to track down a Soviet mole, in a hunt loosely based on the Philby case. Several weeks after the drama ended, it was revealed that Anthony Blunt, the keeper of the Queen's pictures, was the "fourth man" in the Cambridge spy ring. Bate returned as Lacon in the sequel, Smiley's People (1982).

Later, in the cold war thriller Game, Set and Match (1988), based on Len Deighton's trilogy, he took the role of the suave anglicised American Bret Rensselaer, boss of Bernard Samson (Ian Holm), the intelligence officer whose wife turns out to be a double agent.

Born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, Bate attended the town's King Edward VI school. In 1945, a few months before his 18th birthday, his family moved to Seaview, on the Isle of Wight, where Bate worked in the bar at the hotel they owned, after doing his national service with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (1945-47). He enjoyed acting with a local amateur dramatics group, and trained at Central School of Speech and Drama, in London, winning its gold medal, before performing with repertory companies in Worthing, Shanklin and Bournemouth.

Bate made his West End debut in Inherit the Wind (St Martin's theatre, 1960) and also appeared in Treasure Island (Mermaid, 1960), Getting Away With Murder (Comedy, 1976), Little Lies (Wyndham's, 1983-84), The Deep Blue Sea (Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1988) and Relative Values (Savoy, 1993-94). With the Royal Shakespeare Company, he took the roles of Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare Memorial theatre, 1968, American tour and Aldwych theatre, 1969) and Rumsey in Harold Pinter's short play Silence (Aldwych, 1969).

Although he made his film debut, uncredited, in the romantic drama High Tide at Noon (1957) and subsequently appeared in comedies such as Dentist in the Chair (1960) and Dentist on the Job (1961), most of Bate's screen career was spent in television, in more than 100 roles. Producers and directors saw him as perfectly cut out for adaptations of classic novels and cast him as Mr Golspie in JB Priestley's Angel Pavement (1967), Inspector Javert pursuing Frank Finlay's Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (1967), Dr Livesey in Treasure Island (1977) and Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment (1979). Bate also brought gravitas to original television dramas, starring as the gangster Eddie Edwards taking over the empire of a criminal serving a prison sentence in Spindoe (1968) and playing the title role in Grady (1970), as a trade unionist newly released from prison.

He sported a beard to play Harry Paynter, dealing with the repercussions on both his family and work of suffering a heart attack, in Intimate Strangers (1974), before taking the role of the calm unit commander Warren, responsible for preparing soldiers for psychological warfare, in the disturbing Psy-Warriors (1981). He was later a guest star in popular series such as Inspector Morse (1988), Agatha Christie's Poirot (1990), Prime Suspect (1995) and A Touch of Frost (1997). His last screen role was in The Bill in 2004.

In 1954, Bate married Diana Watson, who survives him, along with their two sons, Gavin and Mark.

Anthony Bate, actor, born 31 August 1927; died 19 June 2012

This article was amended on 2 July. The original stated that Bate was cast as Mr Golpie in JB Priestley's Angel Pavement. This has been corrected.

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