Olaf Pooley - S 2015
Courtesy of Olivia Holland-RoseOlaf Pooley, the British actor who starred as the villainous scientist Professor Stahlman in the 1970 Doctor Who serial “Inferno,” has died. He was 101.
Pooley died July 14 in Los Angeles, his granddaughter, Olivia Holland-Rose, said.
Pooley also was known for a stint on another cult series, Star Trek: Voyager, in which he played the Cleric in the 2000 episode “Blink of an Eye,” directed by his then-wife, Gabrielle Beaumont.
On the West End stage, Pooley portrayed Chorley Bannister in the original cast of Noel Coward’s Peace in Our Time, which premiered in 1947, and he had roles in productions of Twelve Angry Men, The Tempest and Othello.
He served as a guest director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he guided Anthony Hopkins, then a young man, in The Waltz of the Toreadors.
Pooley appeared in such films as The Lost People (1949), Highly Dangerous (1950), the Bob Hope–Katharine Hepburn comedy The Iron Petticoat (1956) and The Password Is Courage (1962).
He came to the U.S in the 1980s and had guest-starring roles on such stateside TV shows as Scarecrow and Mrs. King, MacGyver, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law.
In his later years, Pooley turned to painting and was an artist in residence at the Santa Monica Art Studios. He was interviewed by CBS News on the event of his 100th birthday.
“Make up your mind what you really feel you want to do with your life … and do it!” Pooley replied when asked what advice he would give to others.
In addition to Holland-Rose, survivors include his son Seyton, daughter Kirstie and three other grandchildren.
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