Eric Richard Porter (8 April 1928 – 15 May 1995) was an English actor of stage, film and television.
Porter was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall. He was educated at Wimbledon Technical College before making his stage debut in Cambridge in 1945 at the age of 17.
In 1955, he played the title role in Ben Jonson's Volpone at the Bristol Old Vic. In 1960 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company; that year, he played Ferdinand in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. In 1962, his performed as Iachimo in Cymbeline. Other roles included Ulysses, Macbeth, Leontes, Malvolio, Shylock, King Lear and Henry IV, as well as Barabas in Marlowe's Jew of Malta.
Porter's was seen as the tortured solicitor Soames Forsyte in the BBC drama The Forsyte Saga (1967). For this role he won a BAFTA Best Actor award.
He played The Jewel in the Crown; he was also seen as Fagin in the 1985 BBC version of Oliver Twist and as Professor Moriarty opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes stories The Red-Headed League and The Final Problem (both 1985). He also played Polonius in a 1980 television production of
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