Kieron Moore, who died on Sunday aged 82, was an Irish actor whose career began with promise, after he played Count Vronsky in the 1948 film version of Anna Karenina, but it was never fulfilled.
This remake of Tolstoy's novel of tragic adultery failed to match the two versions with Greta Garbo. Although it was beautifully made, Vivien Leigh, who played the heroine, was already developing mental problems, and Moore's wooden performance signalled that he did not exude the powerful personality demanded by the big screen of its stars. When he later read the book he was appalled by the general miscasting of all involved, except for Ralph Richardson.
Nevertheless, he was invited to Hollywood, where he played a dashing corporal alongside Burt Lancaster in Ten Tall Men and Uriah the Hittite in David and Bathsheba.
But after this he returned to England, where he contentedly remained for a busy, if more modest, career over the next 20 years.
Among his other films were The Green Scarf (1953), in which his portrayal of a deaf, dumb and blind murder suspect earned praise from the disabled, and The Blue Peter (1955), about a confused war hero who teaches at an adventure training school.
In The Day of the Triffids (1962), a tale of killer plants from outer space, he found himself trapped in a lighthouse with Janette Scott, and in The League of Gentlemen (1961) he had a then novel role as a homosexual ex-officer involved in a robbery. Crack in the World (1965) was about a dangerous scientist, and Custer of the West (1966) revisited a creaking Wild West legend.
There were also television appearances in The Saint, Jason King and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as well as in his own series Ryan International. But Moore gradually became more selective about his roles, and on being asked to join the Catholic charity Cafod he agreed.
Kieron Moore was born Ciaran O Annrachain, or Kieron O'Hanrahan, at Skibbereen on October 5 1924, the son of an Irish Nationalist writer who had been locked up by the British. His father was such a strong champion of the Irish language that he never spoke in English to his son until a telephone call from England during the war, when the operator told them to do so.
After the family moved to Dublin, Kieron was educated at Colaiste Mhuire, the Irish language school run by the Christian Brothers. He appeared in two Gaelic plays at the Little Peacock Theatre where, according to legend, a well-meaning school fellow invited an Abbey Theatre producer to see him - in the hope that an unfavourable response would drive Kieron back to his books.
But the producer was impressed. As a result Kieron abandoned his medical studies at University College after a short time, and joined the Abbey, where as Kieron O'Hanrahan he had a notable success as Everyman.
On coming to England at 19, his tall figure and dark good looks won him the role of Heathcliff at the Richmond Theatre, after which he appeared in Sean O'Casey's Purple Dust in Liverpool.
His first film role, as as an IRA killer in The Voice Within (1945), fed belief in his potential. After appearing in the smash hit Red Roses for Me, which moved from the Embassy to Wyndham's Theatre, London Film Productions offered him a seven-year contract.
There was no screen test, but he had to change his name to Kieron Moore. For A Man About the House (1947), in which he played a sinister butler in Italy, he learned to play the guitar and speak Italian. When the film was released bodyguards were hired to protect him from his fans, or so the studio claimed, and his next part, in Mine Own Executioner, a successful pyschological thriller, confirmed hopes in him.
In the end, however, they were never fully realised, and he abandoned acting. When Moore joined Cafod he expected to stay only for six months, but remained for seven years, touring the Middle East and making documentaries about Peru and Senegal.
After this he became an associate editor of the Catholic paper The Universe, where he proved a genial and even forceful organiser and edited the supplement New Creation and the magazine New Day. Among his last pieces of work were documentaries for RTE about the Blasket and Aran Islands, for which he provided voice-overs in English and Gaelic.
But after becoming uneasy about the commercialism of St Patrick's Day celebrations in Ireland, he retired to the Charante Maritime in France where he joined the church choir, became a hospital visitor and read Flaubert.
A man of strong faith, Keiron Moore recited the Rosary with his four children every night.
He married, in 1947, the actress Barbara White, whom he had murdered in Mine Own Executioner.