Anthony Bate

An immaculate gent of sober appearance and cultivated presence, Bate was seemingly destined to play spymasters and senior civil servants. Lean, pale-eyed and of deceptively mild intonation, he was capable of unnervingly icy composure, never more effectively displayed than as the chameleon-like Soviet mole Kim Philby in ITV's telemovie Philby, Burgess and Maclean (1977). In similar vein, Bate played the enigmatic, debonair American-born spook, Bret Renssalaer, in Len Deighton's Game, Set, and Match (1988). Most famously, he added an authentic touch to the affable, officious Home Office security undersecretary, Sir Oliver Lacon -- "Whitehall's Head Prefect" - in John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), and its sequel, Smiley's People (1982). Anthony Bate began working life behind the bar of a hotel owned by his family on the Isle of Wight. After completing his national service with the Royal Navy Volunteers in 1947, he started dabbling in amateur dramatics and then took the nex