GEOFFREY Keen, who played the Minister of Defence, Frederick Gray in the James Bond films in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the age of 89.

However, the serious-looking, balding actor had been a familiar face in British films and on television for three decades by the time he made his James Bond debut in The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977.

He had been in a string of classics, including The Third Man (1949), Genevieve (1953), The Maggie (1954), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Born Free (1966), specialising in impatient, humourless military commanders and other authority figures, which made him a perfect foil for Roger Moore's incarnation of Bond.

On the big screen, Keen normally played supporting roles.

But as Brian Stead, managing director of the international oil company Mogul, he was a central figure in The Troubleshooters (1965-1972), the television series that found a seam of drama and adventure in the world of big business, takeovers and labour relations.

Born in Surrey in 1916, he was the son of Malcolm Keen, a distinguished Shakespearean stage actor who occasionally appeared in films, including some of Hitchcock's silents.

Keen's parents' marriage collapsed and he grew up with his mother in Bristol, where he made his professional stage debut in his mid-teens. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, but his acting career was interrupted by the Second World War.

Ironically, for a man who was to play umpteen generals and senior military and police officers, as well as sirs and even prime ministers, Keen rose no higher than corporal in the medical corps. During the war, he got the chance to play a corporal on screen in a short military film called The New Lot (1943), which was directed by Carol Reed. When hostilities ended Reed helped Keen get his film career under way with small roles in Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).

He was the pirate Israel Hands in Disney's Treasure Island (1950) , a priest in Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), the motorcycle policeman in Genevieve (1953), Killearn in Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1954) and the dean in Doctor in the House (1954), the first of three films he made in the popular comedy series.

The Encyclopedia of British Film said of him: "Virtually everything he did deserves noting for its immaculate timing, its detailed attention to what gives life to a role, small or large."

Keen was prolific, and the fact that many of his roles were quite small enabled him to make four or five films a year, as well as appearing regularly on TV.

The Troubleshooters raised his profile and Born Free (1966) and the sequel Living Free (1972) gave him one of his bigger roles, playing game-park boss John Kendall.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) was the first of six Bond films in which he played the irascible Minister of Defence Frederick Gray, who strongly disapproved of Bond's seemingly cavalier approach to the job. Along with M, Q and Miss Moneypenny, the minister became very much a part of the 007 team and Keen made five films with Moore as Bond and one, The Living Daylights (1987), with Timothy Dalton.

Gray was largely restricted to briefing sessions, though in Moonraker he went to Venice with Bond and M. He was not amused when they invaded Hugo Drax's premises in gas masks, expecting to find a secret laboratory, only to discover Drax in palatial surroundings and nothing out of place, forcing the minister to make an abject apology on behalf of Her Majesty's government. Keen voiced the same character in the animated series James Bond Jr (1991-92), though by that time he had otherwise retired.

He was married three times and is survived by a daughter.

Geoffrey Keen, actor; born August 21, 1916, died November 3, 2005.