John Middleton Lankester Paul (20 April 1921 – 23 February 1995) was a British actor.^[1]

He is best known for his television roles, particularly as Dr Spencer Quist in Doomwatch (1970–1972) and Marcus Agrippa in I, Claudius (1976), both for BBC Television.^[2][3]

An early role was as the lead in the ITV series Probation Officer in the early 1960s.^[4] He appeared as Captain Flint in a BBC adaptation of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons in 1963.^[5] He had guest roles in episodes of popular television series such as Out of the Unknown, Doctor Finlay's Casebook, The Avengers, Dixon of Dock Green, The Saint, Marked Personal and The New Avengers, mostly during the 1960s and 1970s.^[6] One of his final TV appearances was in Selling Hitler, based on the real-life attempts to sell fake diaries attributed to Adolf Hitler.^[7]

During his career he also appeared in feature films such as Yangtse Incident (1957), The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), Cromwell (1970), Eye of the Needle (1981), and Cry Freedom (1987).^[1]

Partial filmography