VETERAN actor and artist Olaf Pooley died earlier this month in Los Angeles, aged 101.

Mr Pooley was born in Parkstone in 1914, and went to study art and architecture, before performing in many acclaimed West End theatre productions, television shows and films.

He was well known by fans of Star Trek and Doctor Who for having appeared in both series, and at the time of his death he was oldest person to have done so.

Born to an English father and Danish mother, Mr Pooley studied at the Architectural Association in London and the Chelsea School of Art, before moving to Paris to continue his training at the Academie Colorossi.

He soon began working as a painter, while taking on full time employment at Pinewood Studios design department, and later the BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company.

Already working as an actor, he appeared in West End productions of Twelve Angry Men, The Tempest and Othello, and played Chorley Bannister in the original cast of Noel Coward's Peace in Our Time in 1947.

In film, his roles included The Lost People (1949), Highly Dangerous (1950), Katharine Hepburn comedy The Iron Petticoat (1956) and The Password Is Courage (1962), and he made many TV appearances, including Sherlock Holmes, Dixon of Dock Green, The Sandbaggers and Fall of Eagles.

He was famous for his recurring role as villainous scientist Professor Stahlman in Doctor Who during its Inferno serial in the 1970s, and he portrayed the Cleric in a 2000 episode of Star Trek Voyager – Blink of an Eye – which was directed by his then-wife Gabrielle Beaumont.

He had previously married the actress Irlin Hall.

He was a guest director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and also worked as a screenwriter.

During his career Mr Pooley exhibited artworks with the London Group and the Bloomsbury Gallery, in Paris at the Gallerie d'Alsace, the Centre Culturel Saint Severin, and L'Imagerie, and in Mallorca at La Residencia and the Galleria Ortez, Palma de Mallorca.

Moving permanently to the United States in 1986, Mr Pooley based himself at the Santa Monica Art Studios.

He is survived by a son and daughter and four grandchildren.