1. Ralph Bates was an English film and television actor, known for his role in the British sitcom Dear John and the 1975 series Poldark.
11 Facts About Ralph Bates
1. 2.
Ralph Bates's parents were both psychiatrists; his mother was French and he was a great-great-grandson of French scientist Louis Pasteur.
3.
Ralph Bates held dual-nationality and was bilingual, and was educated at Trinity College Dublin.
4.
Ralph Bates read French there, before winning a scholarship to Yale Drama School.
5.
The course completed, Bates returned to Ireland to make his stage debut in Shaw's You Never Can Tell at The Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 1963.
6.
Later, Ralph Bates carved a niche in the world of horror films and played important roles or the lead in several Hammer Horror productions, such as Taste the Blood of Dracula, The Horror of Frankenstein, Lust for a Vampire, and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, in which he played a doctor who mistakenly transforms himself into a beautiful siren.
7.
Ralph Bates portrayed Caligula in the series The Caesars and with Cyd Hayman in the Crime of Passion series.
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Louis Pasteur 8.
Ralph Bates played communist Paul Vercors in the final season of the drama series Secret Army.
9.
Ralph Bates appeared in the television movie Minder on the Orient Express, again as a Frenchman.
10.
Ralph Bates was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died from the disease ten weeks later in London, at the age of 51.
11.
The Ralph Bates Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund is a registered charity.