Damien Thomas, the British actor perhaps best known for his turn as the vampire Count Karnstein opposite Peter Cushing in the Hammer Films horror classic Twins of Evil, has died. He was 83.
Thomas died April 18 at Salisbury Hospice in Wilshire England, and had been battling progressive supranuclear palsy, daughter Phoebe Court-Thomas told The Hollywood Reporter.
In high-profile miniseries, Thomas played the Portuguese priest Father Alvito alongside Richard Chamberlain in 1980’s Shogun at NBC, and he was the unsettling Richard Mason in a 1983 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton.
Thomas also portrayed a ruthless first mate in Roman Polanski’s Pirates (1986), starring Walter Matthau. When the film bombed at the box office, he blamed himself and said the experience shattered his confidence, he recalled in 2013.
However, when he saw the movie again years later, he “realized it wasn’t me at all. Actually, I’m not so awful in it.
Thomas died April 18 at Salisbury Hospice in Wilshire England, and had been battling progressive supranuclear palsy, daughter Phoebe Court-Thomas told The Hollywood Reporter.
In high-profile miniseries, Thomas played the Portuguese priest Father Alvito alongside Richard Chamberlain in 1980’s Shogun at NBC, and he was the unsettling Richard Mason in a 1983 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton.
Thomas also portrayed a ruthless first mate in Roman Polanski’s Pirates (1986), starring Walter Matthau. When the film bombed at the box office, he blamed himself and said the experience shattered his confidence, he recalled in 2013.
However, when he saw the movie again years later, he “realized it wasn’t me at all. Actually, I’m not so awful in it.
- 4/27/2025
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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