Russell Hunter
Encyclopedia
Russell Hunter was a popular Scottish
television
, stage and film actor
. He is perhaps best known as the character "Lonely" in the TV thriller series Callan
, starring Edward Woodward
and that of Shop-Steward Harry in the Yorkshire Television
sitcom The Gaffer
.
, Hunter's childhood was spent with his maternal grandparents in Lanarkshire
, until returning to his unemployed father and cleaner mother when he was 12. He went from school to an apprenticeship in a Clydebank
shipyard. During this time, he did some amateur acting for the Young Communist League
before turning professional in 1946.
and at the Glasgow Unity Theatre
also performing in the very first Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1947 in The Plough and the Stars by Seán O'Casey
, was a comedian in summer variety shows and toured with a one-man show.
Hunter worked in repertory
theatre and Scottish variety before making his film debut in Lilli Marlene
(1950). He appeared with Archie Duncan
in the film The Gorbals Story, in London the same year, which also featured his first wife, Marjorie Thomson, and he followed these by playing a pilot in the Battle of Britain drama Angels One Five in 1951.
A busy actor, he joined Peter Hall's Royal Shakespeare Company
, working with Peggy Ashcroft
and Dame Edith Evans
.
His most memorable role was the timid, smelly petty criminal, Lonely, unlikely accomplice to a clinical spy-cum-assassin, in the downbeat 1967 television spy series Callan
. Reportedly, he said of his identification with Lonely that "I take more baths than I might have playing other parts. When Lonely was in the public eye I used only the very best toilet water and a hell of a lot of aftershave."
After playing Costard
in a BBC
television production of Love's Labour's Lost
(1965), Hunter was cast as Lonely in ITV's "Armchair Theatre" production A Magnum for Schneider in 1967, which introduced the secret agent Callan to the screen. Four series followed (1967, 1969-72). Hunter and Edward Woodward reprised their roles in both a 1974 feature film of the same name and, seven years later, in the television film Wet Job, by which time Lonely had gone straight, got married and was running a plumbing company called Fresh and Fragrant. The title plays on "wet job" the euphemism for murder or assassination.
During his years with Callan, Hunter acted in the Hammer
horror film
Taste the Blood of Dracula
(1970) and took the roles of Crumbles, Dr Fogg and Dr Makepeace in an ITV production of Sweeney Todd
(1970), He also appeared in the British comedy film Up Pompeii (film)
(1971) as the Jailor.
Hunter's other TV credits include The Sweeney
, Doctor Who
: Robots of Death, Farrington of the F.O.
, The Bill
, A Touch of Frost
, sitcoms Rule Brittania (1975) as the Scotsman Jock McGregor and shop steward in The Gaffer (1981-83), and his last ever TV appearance, in the BBC drama Born and Bred
. In his last years he reprised his Doctor Who role for a series of audio plays released on CD, Kaldor City
.
He also appeared as different characters in the pilot and series of the BBC sitcom Rab C. Nesbitt
.
, Hunter's last theatrical stint was in the Sidney Lumet
play 12 Angry Men at the same, if inconceivably expanded, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with which he had remained inextricably linked.
Despite being ill, Hunter received positive reviews for his appearances in the feature film American Cousins
late in 2003 and as a priest in the film Skagerrak. In November, American Cousins, Hunter's last movie role, received the Special Jury Prize
at the Savannah Film Festival in the United States, ending a career spanning six decades.
after they both appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream
at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. They had a son and a daughter. His third marriage, in 1991, was to fellow performer Una McLean
.
Russell Hunter died aged 79 at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital of lung cancer.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, stage and film actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He is perhaps best known as the character "Lonely" in the TV thriller series Callan
Callan (TV series)
Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972...
, starring Edward Woodward
Edward Woodward
Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English stage and screen actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Woodward began his career on stage, and throughout his career he appeared in productions in both the West End in London and on Broadway in New York...
and that of Shop-Steward Harry in the Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
sitcom The Gaffer
The Gaffer (TV series)
The Gaffer is an ITV situation comedy series of the early 1980s starring Bill Maynard and written by businessman Graham White. 20 episodes were shown between 1981 and 1983...
.
Life
Born Russell Ellis in GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Hunter's childhood was spent with his maternal grandparents in Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire or the County of Lanark ) is a Lieutenancy area, registration county and former local government county in the central Lowlands of Scotland...
, until returning to his unemployed father and cleaner mother when he was 12. He went from school to an apprenticeship in a Clydebank
Clydebank
Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, Clydebank borders Dumbarton, the town with which it was combined to form West Dunbartonshire, as well as the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire, and the Yoker and...
shipyard. During this time, he did some amateur acting for the Young Communist League
Young Communist League (Britain)
The Young Communist League is the name of both the youth wing of the former Communist Party of Great Britain and the current youth wing of the Communist Party of Britain ; an organisation that sees itself as the successor to the Communist Party of Great Britain.-Original Young Communist League...
before turning professional in 1946.
Work
Under the stage name Russell Hunter, he acted at Perth RepPerth, Scotland
Perth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...
and at the Glasgow Unity Theatre
Glasgow Unity Theatre
The Glasgow Unity Theatre was a theatre group that was formed in 1941, in Glasgow. The Unity theatre movement developed from workers' drama groups in the 1930s, seeing itself as using theatre to highlight the issues of the working class being produced by and for working class audiences...
also performing in the very first Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1947 in The Plough and the Stars by Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
, was a comedian in summer variety shows and toured with a one-man show.
Hunter worked in repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
theatre and Scottish variety before making his film debut in Lilli Marlene
Lilli Marlene (film)
Lilli Marlene is a 1950 British historical drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Hugh McDermott, Lisa Daniely and Stanley Baker...
(1950). He appeared with Archie Duncan
Archie Duncan (actor)
Archie Duncan was a Scottish actor born in Glasgow.Duncan's father was a Regimental Sergeant Major in the army and his mother a postmistress...
in the film The Gorbals Story, in London the same year, which also featured his first wife, Marjorie Thomson, and he followed these by playing a pilot in the Battle of Britain drama Angels One Five in 1951.
A busy actor, he joined Peter Hall's Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, working with Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
and Dame Edith Evans
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE was a British actress. She was known for her work on the British stage. She also appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.Evans was particularly effective at portraying haughty...
.
Callan
Callan (TV series)
Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972...
. Reportedly, he said of his identification with Lonely that "I take more baths than I might have playing other parts. When Lonely was in the public eye I used only the very best toilet water and a hell of a lot of aftershave."
After playing Costard
Costard
Costard is a comic figure in the play Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare. A country bumpkin, he is arrested in the first scene for flouting the king's proclamation that all men of the court avoid the company of women for a year. While in custody, the men of the court use him to further...
in a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television production of Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598.-Title:...
(1965), Hunter was cast as Lonely in ITV's "Armchair Theatre" production A Magnum for Schneider in 1967, which introduced the secret agent Callan to the screen. Four series followed (1967, 1969-72). Hunter and Edward Woodward reprised their roles in both a 1974 feature film of the same name and, seven years later, in the television film Wet Job, by which time Lonely had gone straight, got married and was running a plumbing company called Fresh and Fragrant. The title plays on "wet job" the euphemism for murder or assassination.
During his years with Callan, Hunter acted in the Hammer
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula is a British horror film produced by Hammer Film Productions and released in 1970. It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, and was directed by Peter Sasdy...
(1970) and took the roles of Crumbles, Dr Fogg and Dr Makepeace in an ITV production of Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
(1970), He also appeared in the British comedy film Up Pompeii (film)
Up Pompeii (film)
Up Pompeii is a 1971 British comedy film directed by Bob Kellett and starring Frankie Howerd and Michael Hordern. The film was shot at Elstree Film Studios, Borehamwood, England...
(1971) as the Jailor.
Hunter's other TV credits include The Sweeney
The Sweeney
The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...
, Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
: Robots of Death, Farrington of the F.O.
Farrington of the F.O.
Farrington of the F.O. was a British television comedy series by Dick Sharples about the staff of the British Consulate in "one of the armpits of Latin America". It was produced by Yorkshire Television and broadcast from 1986 to 1987...
, The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
, A Touch of Frost
A Touch of Frost (TV series)
A Touch of Frost is a television detective series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV from 1992 until 2010, initially based on the Frost novels by R. D. Wingfield....
, sitcoms Rule Brittania (1975) as the Scotsman Jock McGregor and shop steward in The Gaffer (1981-83), and his last ever TV appearance, in the BBC drama Born and Bred
Born and Bred
Born and Bred is a light-hearted British drama series that aired on BBC One from 2002 to 2005. Created by Chris Chibnall and Nigel McCrery, Born and Breds cast was led by James Bolam and Michael French, who play a father and son who run a cottage hospital in Ormston, a fictional Lancashire village...
. In his last years he reprised his Doctor Who role for a series of audio plays released on CD, Kaldor City
Kaldor City
Kaldor City is a human city of the future on an unspecified alien world, created by Chris Boucher for the Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death broadcast in 1977, and reused in his Past Doctor Adventure Corpse Marker in 1999...
.
He also appeared as different characters in the pilot and series of the BBC sitcom Rab C. Nesbitt
Rab C. Nesbitt
Rab C. Nesbitt is a Scottish sitcom which began in 1988. Produced by BBC Scotland, it stars Gregor Fisher as an alcoholic Glaswegian who believed unemployment was the life for him...
.
Illness
Although in the advanced stages of cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, Hunter's last theatrical stint was in the Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
play 12 Angry Men at the same, if inconceivably expanded, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with which he had remained inextricably linked.
Despite being ill, Hunter received positive reviews for his appearances in the feature film American Cousins
American Cousins
American Cousins is a romantic comedy about a Scots-Italian fish and chip shop owner who gives refuge to his Mafia relatives when they go on the run. It was voted one of the top three Scottish films of all time by readers of The List magazine ....
late in 2003 and as a priest in the film Skagerrak. In November, American Cousins, Hunter's last movie role, received the Special Jury Prize
Special Jury Prize
Several awards ceremonies have a Special Jury Prize# Jury Prize # Special Jury Prize...
at the Savannah Film Festival in the United States, ending a career spanning six decades.
Personal life
In 1949, Hunter married Marjorie Thomson and had two daughters. In 1970, he married actress Caroline BlakistonCaroline Blakiston
Caroline Blakiston is an English actress who has appeared predominantly in television roles, notably in the series Brass. She also appeared as Mon Mothma in the science fiction film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
after they both appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. They had a son and a daughter. His third marriage, in 1991, was to fellow performer Una McLean
Una McLean
Una McLean MBE is a Scottish actress and comedienne, best known for appearing in pantomimes. She was married to Scottish stage and film actor Russell Hunter from 1991 until his death in 2004....
.
Russell Hunter died aged 79 at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital of lung cancer.