Russell Hunter

Adam Russell Hunter (18 February 1925 – 26 February 2004) was a Scottish television, stage and film actor. He played Lonely in the TV thriller series ''Callan'', starring Edward Woodward, and shop steward Harry in the Yorkshire Television sitcom '' The Gaffer'' (1981–1983) with Bill Maynard. He made guest appearances in well-known series such as ''The Sweeney'', ''Doctor Who'', '' Taggart'', '' A Touch of Frost'', '' The Bill'' and Granada television's ''The Return of Sherlock Holmes'' in The Adventure of Silver Blaze.

Life

Born Russell Ellis in Glasgow, 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.

Career

Early work

Under the stage name Russell Hunter, he acted at Perth Rep 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). In the same year, he appeared in the film ''The Gorbals Story'', which featured members of the Glasgow Unity Theatre including Archie Duncan and Roddy McMillan. The film also featured Hunter's first wife, Marjorie Thomson. He followed these by playing a pilot in the Battle of Britain drama ''Angels One Five'' in 1951.

His theatre work included joining Peter Hall's Royal Shakespeare Company, working with Peggy Ashcroft and Dame Edith Evans. and appearing in Charlie’s Aunt at the Bristol Old Vic in 1964-5.

''Callan''

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.

Other roles

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'' (1971) as the Jailer.

He had two notable appearances in one-man plays performed on BBC Scotland in the early 1970s: ''Cocky'', where he played Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, which ended with his speech to the jury defending Helen McDougal, Burke's wife, in the Burke and Hare case, and ''Jock'', where he played an archetypal Scottish soldier guarding a military museum. In 1974 he played Ted, a simple-minded but kind-hearted man in a two-part story in '' Rooms (TV Series)'', two-part dramas concerning the various drifters who rent rooms in a lodging house. He played 'Old Fred' in a 1974 episode of ''Thriller''. In 1975 he played a Scottish painter in the BBC's adaptation of the ''Lord Peter Wimsey'' story ''The Five Red Herrings''. In 1979, at the artist's request, he opened the Edinburgh Festival Exhibition of the Glasgow artist Stewart Bowman Johnson held at the Netherbow Gallery.

Hunter's other TV credits include ''The Sweeney'' (as a gay petty criminal and informant, Popeye, very similar to his Callan character Lonely), '' Ace of Wands'' (as the evil magician Mr Stabs, a role he reprised in an episode of the anthology series '' Shadows''), ''Doctor Who'' serial '' The Robots of Death'' (1977), ''Farrington of the F.O.'', '' The Bill'', '' A Touch of Frost'', '' Taggart'', sitcoms ''Rule Britannia'' (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 in an episode of '' Mind Your Language'' as a minor character in the episode "I Belong To Glasgow". He also appeared in the TV sitcom Lovejoy as a Scottish submariner in the episode "Angel Trousers".

He also appeared as different characters in the pilot and series of the BBC sitcom '' Rab C. Nesbitt''.

Personal life

In 1949, Hunter married Marjorie Thomson and had two daughters. In 1970, he married actress Caroline Blakiston 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. They lived in a converted building at Taylor Gardens in Leith.

Illness

Although in the advanced stages of cancer, Hunter's last theatrical stint was in the Reginald Rose 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.

Death

Russell Hunter died aged 79 at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital of lung cancer.

Filmography

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Russell
1925 births
2004 deaths
Deaths from cancer in Scotland
Deaths from lung cancer
Male actors from Glasgow
Royal Shakespeare Company members
Scottish male television actors
Scottish male Shakespearean actors