Ralph Bates

The great, great nephew of the renowned French scientist Louis Pasteur developed into a strangely handsome dark haired, pale complexioned English actor. Ralph Bates was born in 1940 in Bristol, England and attended the University of Dublin and studied at the Yale Drama School. His dramatic talents first came to audiences attention playing the evil Emperor Caligula in the well received BBC TV series The Caesars (1968). However, the Hammer studios resurrection of the horror genre was then in full stride, and Bates was soon engulfed in the swirling cloak of Hammer's success as he appeared in several horror films in quick succession. Firstly in a support role as demonic Lord Courtley in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), followed as the lead character Baron Frankenstein in The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), then as Giles Barton in the sexy Lust for a Vampire (1971) and as the well meaning Dr. Jekyll in an unusual spin on the Robert Louis Stevenson story in Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971), B