Francis de Wolff (7 January 1913 - 18 April 1984) was a English character actor. Large, bearded, and beetle-browed, he was often cast as villains in both film and television.
Born in Essex, he made his film debut in Flame in the Heather in 1935, and went on to make many other appearances in such films as Fire Over England (1936), Treasure Island (1950), Scrooge (1951), as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Ivanhoe (1952), Moby Dick (1956), Saint Joan (1957), From Russia with Love (1964), Carry On Cleo (1964) and The Three Musketeers (1973).
He is perhaps best remembered as a supporting player in horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, many of them for Hammer Studios. These include Corridors of Blood (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), Devil Doll (1963), The Black Torment (1964) and Licensed to Kill.
His television appearances include The Avengers, Danger Man, Dixon of Dock Green, Doctor Who, Jesus of Nazareth, Maigret, Paul Temple, The Saint, and The Tomorrow People.
Despite very often depicting European characters on film, he is a British actor.
