Ram John Holder

Born 1934 in Guyana, British actor Ram John Holder began his career as a folksinger in New York. He relocated to London in 1962 and began working as a musician with Pearl Connor's Negro Theatre Workshop, eventually trying his hand at acting, a shrewd decision, as it turned out. Soon he was acting at some pretty prestigious stages in London, including appearing in productions at the Royal National Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic. Moving on to appearances on the big screen, Holder was cast in John Boorman's Leo the Last in 1969 (he also sang the songs in the film), and went on to appear in several other films, including Horace Ove's Pressure in 1975 and Sankofa Film’s The Passion of Remembrance in 1986, and he had a cameo as a poet in 1985’s My Beautiful Laundrette. Holder also worked in television, cast as the character Porkpie in the sitcom Desmond's, which ran from 1989 until 1994, and he also starred in the brief Desmond’s spinoff series called Porkpie. He joined the cast of another TV series, EastEnders, in 2006, and that same year he appeared in the stage revival of August Wilson's Ma Rainy’s Black Bottom at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Always a talented musician, Holder recorded several albums along the way, including Black London Blues (1969), Bootleg Blues (1971), You Simply Are... (1975), and Ram Blues & Soul; released several singles; and contributed songs and performances to various film and television soundtracks.