His first major film role was in the 1950s swashbuckler, The Moonraker. However, he has become better known as a television actor. In the 1976 drama serial, I, Claudius, he played the emperor Tiberius Caesar. Since 1988, he has played Inspector Reg Wexford in occasional television adaptations of mysteries by Ruth Rendell. In 1993, following the death of his first wife, he married the actress Louie Ramsay, who plays Mrs Wexford in the same television series.