Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Olaf Pooley

Actor

Born - 13 March 1914, Parkstone, Dorset, England
Died - 14 July 2015

One of the last surviving British character actors of the postwar era, this stocky, heavy-browed, sometimes bespectacled player, with dark, receding hair, often seen as shady foreigners, was also a talented painter. Born Ole Pooley to English/Danish parents, he joined the BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company in his late twenties and soon became a familiar voice in character roles, often in thriller serials. Films followed soon after the end of the war: Penny and the Pownall Case (1948), The Huggetts Abroad (1949), Highly Dangerous (1950), Hell is Sold Out (1951), Gift Horse (1952), Top Secret (1952), The Gamma People (1956), Anastasia (1956), Windom's Way (1957), Left, Right and Centre (1959), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Naked Evil (1966), The Assassination Bureau (1969), The Johnstown Monster (1971, and directed), Deadly Game (1979), Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus (1996) and the short Fellini's Donut (2005), his last. His second wife (both divorced) was director Gabrielle Beaumont. He moved to America in the 1980s to pursue his painting career, and held an exhibition of his work there at the age of 100.