Iain Cuthbertson....... R.I.P.

[Bronson Lee]

For me, best remembered as smut peddler Charlie Endell in Budgie and the fantastic spin off 'Charles Endell Esquire' that he sang (in a very Scottish accent) "I'm back, I'm definitely back.

I hope Caractacus has seen this, mate lets raise a glass of single malt .......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn8QPO8G ... L&index=93


The Scottish actor Iain Cuthbertson, who has died aged 79, achieved national prominence on television as the slippery Charlie Endell in the ITV comedy crime-drama Budgie (1971-72), and, on the other side of the law, in the title role in the BBC drama series Sutherland's Law, playing a procurator fiscal in a small Scottish town (1973-76). Cuthbertson stood 6ft 4in and was as imposing in voice as in appearance. As the gangster Endell, he revealed a wry edge to his villainy; there was a certain twinkle in the eye, under the high forehead and compressed mouth.

Born in Glasgow, the son of David Cuthbertson, a leading biochemist, he went to school at Glasgow academy and Aberdeen grammar and read modern languages at Aberdeen University. Much later, he served as its rector, from 1975 to 1978.

After national service as an officer in the Black Watch, he began acting and became a regular at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, where he impressed as Othello (1959) and as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). He returned to the theatre as general manager from 1962 to 1965. Later, he was associate director at the Royal Court in London, directing the comedian Max Wall in a 1966 production of Alfred Jarry's absurdist play Ubu Roi. He also worked for BBC radio as a reporter. In the 1980s, a press advertisement for Scotch whisky contrasted a picture of the young Cuthbertson standing at a microphone with his present-day self, under the strapline "improved with age".

His first television appearance was in a BBC programme about holidaying in the Scottish resort of Dunoon, Argyll, presented by Franklin Engelmann. "I can't say that I prefer the stage," Cuthbertson once said. "I find television very stimulating and far less tying down in terms of time."

For the producer Peter Graham Scott, he played a conniving, 18th-century laird in The Borderers (1968-70). The BBC2 series was conceived with the (ultimately unsuccessful) hope of selling it to America, and its cast included the then unknown Michael Gambon.

He then took on the role of Endell, a Scottish crime boss muscling in on London's Soho, and the employer of the luckless Budgie Bird, played by Adam Faith. Cuthbertson relished his character's sly ruthlessness as well as the scripts by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. Arguably, Endell was a truer reflection of such a type than Arthur Daley in Minder, in which Cuthbertson guested in 1989. He reprised the role in Scottish TV's Charles Endell Esquire (1979), his character now out of jail and aiming to be Glasgow's crime lord, but despite heavy promotion, it ran for only one series.

Cuthbertson was a chief constable in Scotch on the Rocks (BBC, 1973), a five-part thriller dealing with nationalism and the prospect of Scotland becoming a world power, adapted from the novel by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond. In Sutherland's Law, he starred as the public prosecutor John Sutherland, undertaking investigations into criminal cases in a rural community on the west coast of Scotland. The series made much use of locations in Oban, Argyll, and brought him a Radio Industries Club of Scotland award for television personality of 1973.

To the surprise and delight of Michael Palin, Cuthbertson accepted a role in an episode of Palin's and Terry Jones's Ripping Yarns (1977), parodying a pre-war murder investigation. He would also enjoy some self-spoofing as Scunner Campbell in the children's ITV comedy SuperGran (1985-87), contributing the line "is there nothing she cannae do?" to Billy Connolly's theme song.

His plays for television included David Edgar's political drama Destiny (BBC, 1978) and two excursions into the supernatural, Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape (BBC, 1972), and MR James's Casting the Runes (ITV, 1979). Twice he was a fearsome headmaster, in Tom Brown's Schooldays (BBC, 1971) and Vice Versa (ATV, 1981).

Films included the classic screen adaption of E Nesbit's The Railway Children (1970), with Cuthbertson playing the children's father, finally freed and reunited with his family after being wrongly imprisoned for espionage. He also appeared in Gorillas in the Mist (1988), starring Sigourney Weaver, and in Scandal (1989), portraying Lord Hailsham.

Cuthbertson suffered a stroke in 1982. One of his first jobs after he recovered was as dialogue coach to a multinational cast in Graham Scott's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae (1984), starring John Gielgud. Guest appearances, often as enjoyable heavies, included The Avengers, The Onedin Line and Inspector Morse.

Cuthbertson's marriage to the actor Anne Kristen ended in 1988 (she died in 1996). His second wife, Janet, survives him.

? Iain Cuthbertson, actor, born 4 January 1930; died 4 September 2009

[steve56]

Aye Budgie you little bustard yea great actor was also in Department S /Avengers

[Jonboy]

Great actor both Budie and Sutherland's Law great series. Shame true actor

[Bronson Lee]

That's the first time I've heard you do an accent Stevie....brilliant,
have you heard the new The Tremeloes - Boxset yet?

[Bronson Lee]

Does anyone remember him in 'the Children of the Stones'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Stones

[mrmcfister]

'What am I goin' to do with a thousand pigeons Budgie?'

[Guilbert]

I never watched Budgie, though saw Cuthbertson in a few things on TV.

I remember he was in one episode of Ripping Yarns, the Micheal Palin / Terry Jones comedy series.

Here he is, 4 minutes 20 seconds in: