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).