John Malkovich 'saved the life' of an elderly man after 77-year-old Jim Walpole fell and cut his neck open.

According to the Ohio pensioner the star of Dangerous Liaisons, Red and Being John Malkovich put pressure on his wound and said: "My name is John and you are going to be all right".

Walpole suffered his accident while on a bus holiday to Toronto with his wife Marilyn. He tripped outside his hotel, fell into scaffolding and suffered a gash to the neck. Malkovich was one of the first on the scene. "He started to press on my neck," Walpole told the Toronto Sun. "He said he was trying to stop the bleeding."

Ben Quinn, a Toronto native who stopped to help, said Malkovich had a good command of the situation. ""The guy really seemed to know what he was doing," he said. "We didn't know who he was. I just asked if I could hold the man's head and he said yes."

"He told the man don't worry, the Canadian medical system is excellent," said Quinn. "He assured the man everything was going to be first class."

Malkovich is in Toronto appearing in The Giacomo Variations With John Malkovich as Casanova at the Elgin Theatre, close to where the accident happened.

"I want to hug them all," said Marilyn Walpole of the efforts to help her husband, who was taken on to hospital. "They are all heroes."

Malkovich has made no comment about the incident.