On July 3 2020 the movie industry lost one of its most famous faces as Earl Cameron died at the age of 102 in his sleep.

Cameron, who was born in Pembroke, Bermuda in 1917, is famous for being one of the first black actors to have a truly successful career in television and cinema.

Having been credited in at least 40 features, he spent the last years of his life in Kenilworth with his wife Barbara.

The youngest of six children, Cameron spent his formative years in Bermuda before joining the British merchant navy and moving to London in the late 1930's.

During the Second World War he was a member of 'Ensa' the service's entertainment troop.

After leaving the navy, Cameron picked up casual work in London before making his stage debut in the chorus of Chu Chin Chow.

He then found himself on the big screen for the first time in 1951 in the film noir production Pool of London in which he played a merchant seaman who battles racists and romances a white girl beside Greenwich Observatory.

A role which perhaps set a tone for what he would achieve as a black man in a white-dominated industry.

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Over the next decade Cameron appeared in over 30 different productions, in the cinema as well as on television. His work allowed him, or forced him, to travel as he had done in the navy, with a number of his films being shot on location in Africa.

During this time he married his first wife, Audrey, in 1954, with whom he had five children. He also had another son from a previous relationship.

In 1965 he had a part in Thunderball where Sean Connery played James Bond; he also featured in Doctor Who around the same time.

In 1979 Cameron gave up acting, after working with Sean Connery again in the film Cuba.

Cameron was to leave the UK to help spread the word of the Baha'i faith. In 1979 he moved to the Solomon Islands to pursue his spiritual work - he is also said to have run an ice cream shop on the side!

However, following the death of his first wife in 1994, he returned to the UK and married Barbara Bower as he resumed his acting career, fittingly in Déjà Vu in 1998.

Cameron was then cast in The Interpreter, The Queen, and Inception in the 2000's.

In 2009 he was awarded a CBE for his services to drama.

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