John Carlisle (actor)

On film, Carlisle played the elderly Private Mirus in the 2001 horror film The Bunker. He also had small roles in Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah (2005) and in Forget Me Not (2010).

Carlisle joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1979, rather unusually for an actor who until then had predominantly worked in television. He then performed extensively on stage (see 'Selected stage work'). He appeared on Broadway in the RSC productions Cyrano de Bergerac, Much Ado About Nothing (both 1985) and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1986) as well as A Doll's House (1997). As an Associate Artist with the RSC he appeared in a great number of plays, including The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Seagull and Per Gynt. In later years he worked prominently at the National Theatre.

He starred alongside John Woodvine in the London Weekend Television crime series New Scotland Yard from 1972 to 1973. He played the opinionated and sometimes callous Detective Inspector (later Sergeant) Alan Ward and referred to having played the role "in kind of a Gestapo way, beating up criminals and things like that". The portrayal led to letters of complaint, so that the character was toned down in subsequent series. In 1979, Carlisle appeared in the BBC series The Omega Factor as the morally ambiguous psychiatrist Dr. Roy Martindale.

While appearing in repertory at Birmingham, Carlisle was spotted by an ATV casting director and asked to audition for the hospital drama series Emergency – Ward 10. Carlisle first assumed the role of the young doctor Lester Large in episode 533, in 1962. His character became a regular in the show, and Carlisle made numerous appearances including in the final episode of the long-running series in 1967.

John Carlisle (6 September 1935 – 7 December 2011) was an English television and stage actor.