Before They Were Famous: Actors on 'Agatha Christie's Poirot'

In the winter of 1989, Mystery! was entering its ninth wildly successful season as Masterpiece Theater's British murder-and-crime-focused spinoff. The series had boasted a string of Thursday night hits, starting with the 1970s Father Brown series starring Kenneth More, the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, the 1980s Roy Marsden Dalgliesh adaptations, Edward Petherbridge's Lord Peter Wimsey, and John Thaw as Morse. But nothing beat Agatha Christie. There was The Agatha Christie Hour, the Joan Hickson Miss Marples, and Tommy and Tuppence in Partners in Crime. For Season 9 of Mystery!, PBS debuted a brand new series, Poirot (later rebranded Agatha Christie's Poirot), starring David Suchet as the definitive version of Christie's detective.

Created by Clive Exton and Brian Eastman, the early seasons of the show had a whimsical nature to them, developing the light touch we know today as "cozy crime" with a jazzy saxophone riff opening and an ensemble crew that supported Poirot in his adventures. Hugh Fraser played Captain Hastings, Philip Jackson Inspector Japp, and Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon, a surprising addition, considering the 1980s were not a time when TV creators worried about representation. Every week, these four ran into a new group of guest stars and had adventures, at first drawn from Christie's short stories and later from her well-known novels.

Like most shows that rely heavily on casting guests every week, these actors who passed through mostly went on to be "that guys" or "that gals," the BBC ensemble actors who seem to be in every mystery series. But here and there, a few breakouts emerged. Here are the top ten actors from Agatha Christie's Poirot who starred in Christie mysteries before they were famous.