Norman Lugard Beaton (31 October 1934 – 13 December 1994) was a Guyanese actor long resident in the United Kingdom.

The writer Stephen Bourne has called him "the most influential and highly regarded black British actor of his time".

[3] Beaton developed a parallel career as a calypso singer, scoring a number-one hit in Trinidad and Tobago with "Come Back Melvina" in 1959.

[4] While in the city, he played guitar for Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough – who became known as the Liverpool Poets – including appearances at the Cavern Club.

The moderate success of this play gave Beaton enough confidence to give up teaching and to concentrate on the theatre.

He moved first to Bristol and then to Sussex where he played the leading role in a musical he had written, Sit Down, Banna, at the Connaught Theatre.

In 1976, Beaton broke into television in the series The Fosters, which also featured a young Lenny Henry, and the following year played the lead role in a low-budget independent film about a West Indian community in London, Black Joy, for his role in which he was named Film Actor of the Year in 1978 by the Variety Club of Great Britain.