The great Earl Cameron, CBE, speaking from his home in the UK yesterday, said he’s greatly honoured and looking with keen anticipation to returning to his Bermuda homeland to jump start the ‘Heartbeats of History’ year-long series of the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, under Folklife Officer Dr Kim Dismont Robinson.

The celebrated stage, screen and television star, sounding as hale and hearty as ever at age 94, is due to arrive on Good Friday with his wife Barbara and talented granddaughter Siria Rutstein for an appearance at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute on April 11.

Also due from the UK is a television news crew that will cover the presentation of Mr Cameron, his lecture and Siria’s vocal solo renditions.

Mr Cameron is hailed as a remarkable man, with a career spanning 70 years, and “still castable”.

Aside from his radio and television appearances, his most recent Hollywood blockbusters included roles in ‘The Interpreter’ and ‘The Queen’.

The UK’s Screenonline recently profiled him as “a warm, balanced, loving and genuinely humble individual”.

It added: “From the moment he first appeared on screen, as a young Jamaican in Ealing Studios’ underrated ‘Pool of London’ (d. Basil Dearden, 1951), Earl Cameron brought a breath of fresh air to the British film industry’s stuffy depictions of race relations. Often cast as a sensitive outsider, Cameron gave his characters a grace and moral authority that often surpassed the films’ compromised liberal agendas.

“He pioneered the way for other black actors to take roles that respected them as people rather than depicting their characters as racial stereotypes. Earl Cameron has worked with such screen legends as Dirk Bogarde (‘Simba’, 1955), John Mills (‘Flame in the Street’, 1961) and Richard Attenbourough (‘Guns at Batasi’, 1964). He co-starred with Sean Connery in the James Bond blockbuster ‘Thunderball’ (1965).