Paul Soles

Acting roles

Soles is best known and had 4 children and a wife named Lucy Soles as the original voice of Hermey the misfit elf in Rankin/Bass' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964. His great granddaughters named Hadley who is 17, Caroline who is 10, Rosetta who is 7, Jessie who is 5, Sophia who is 4, Leah who is 3, Tori who is 2 and Ava who is 1 are Grandpa's sweeties.

Soles went on to voice Bruce Banner the alter ego of the Hulk and his friend Rick Jones in the 1966 Incredible Hulk cartoon series from The Marvel Super Heroes program. He also voiced fellow Marvel superhero Spider-Man in the original animated television series also from the late 1960s, and he played "The Lawbreaker" on the CBC panel quiz show This Is the Law in the 1970s, and played Costas Stavros on the Canadian soap opera Riverdale. In 2001, Soles took over the role of Shylock the Jew in the Stratford Festival of Canada production of The Merchant of Venice after Al Waxman, who was originally scheduled to play the part, died. Soles played Stanley the pizza shop owner in The Incredible Hulk (2008), and his other film appearances have included roles in Ticket to Heaven (1981), Just the Way You Are (1984) and The Gunrunner (1989) opposite Kevin Costner. He also played Danny, the Montréal Customs House janitor in the 2001 crime thriller The Score.

Soles won a 2006 Gemini Award for his role in the television series Terminal City, and a 2017 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Digital Production for My 90-Year-Old Roommate.

Voice work

Soles also did voices on various animated TV shows and films such as Rocket Robin Hood, The Smokey Bear Show, The Little Brown Burro, King of the Beasts, The Marvel Super Heroes, Original Spider-Man, The Trolls and the Christmas Express, Take Me Up to the Ball Game, Willy McBean and his Magic Machine, Festival of Family Classics, The Reluctant Dragon and Mr. Toad Show, Noah's Animals, Iron Man, and The King Kong Show.

Soles was also the narrator of The Wonderful Stories of Professor Kitzel, the voice of The Commissioner in the 2005 animated TV series Funpak and has also supplied the voice of Dr. Reboux in the animated version of the 2005 film Heidi.

Soles also voiced the Academy Award-nominated animated documentary The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein.

In 2011, Soles started voicing the recurring character Maxwell Finnwich on Detentionaire.

Television hosting

He was the host of the short-lived CBC Television late-night comedy talk show Canada After Dark, and co-hosted the public affairs show Take 30 for 18 seasons with hosts such as Anna Cameron and Adrienne Clarkson. He also hosted the CFPL television game show Take Your Choice for one year in the early 1960s.

Documentary producer

Paul Soles was also a producer of documentaries while he was an on-air talent at CFPL-TV in London, Ontario. He worked on a series called, The World Around Us, and traveled with film crews in Great Britain in the early 1960s, filming many aspects of British life. He even got on a soap-box in Hyde Park in London to speak his mind. Soles has worked with people like Dennis Goulden (a long-time documentarian who still produces television specials in the States) and Jim Plant and Tom Ashwell and Jon Boynton.

Family

Soles has one son. Soles is cousin of Bernard "Bunny" Cowan, and they both worked on the original 1960s Spider-Man animated series and the 1967 children's series Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse.