Edward Woodward, star of Callan and The Equalizer, dies

Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent
16 Nov 2009

Edward Woodward, whose acting roles took in everything from a government assassin to a puritanical policeman investigating the occult, died today aged 79.

The veteran star had been ill for some time and was suffering from pneumonia among other illnesses, his agent Janet Glass said.

Woodward was born in Croydon in 1930 where he went to various schools before Kingston College and then the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Originally a classical actor, he worked in repertory theatre until his London debut in RF Delderfield's Where There's A Will in 1955. He made his screen debut in the subsequent movie version.

Woodward appeared in the West End in plays including Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and also played Broadway from the Sixties.

But it was with two hit television series that he achieved fame — Callan and The Equalizer.

Callan began as an ITV Armchair Theatre play, A Magnum for Schneider, in which he played David Callan, a spy with a conscience capable of tightly controlled rage. It was turned into a gritty series that ran in Britain from 1967 to 1972. Then, a decade later in America, he proved a successful spy again with The Equalizer, in which he played a steely eyed secret agent-turned-vigilante. It ran from 1985 to 1989 and won him a Golden Globe.

The part of the decent man was typical of his many stage and television appearances, most famously in The Wicker Man from 1973, the occult thriller in which he appeared as a devout Christian police sergeant scandalised at discovering pagan rituals on a Scottish island where he is investigating the disappearance of a young girl.

But in a career spanning more than 2,000 television productions as well as movies and stage, he appeared in everything from the Morecambe and Wise Show to The Good Old Days, the latter courtesy of his talent as a singer. He made more than a dozen musical recordings as well as producing audio books, a format perfect for his distinctive voice.

Despite two heart attacks and triple bypass surgery in 1996 and a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2003, he made his television soap debut this year in EastEnders as the mystery man Tommy Clifford.

The actor, who lived near Padstow, Cornwall, died today in the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro. He is survived by his wife, actress Michele Dotrice, whom he married in 1987. They have a daughter, Emily, in addition to his three other children, Tim, Peter and Sarah, all actors, by his first marriage to actress Venetia Barrett.

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