Lewis Collins died today, personally I always wanted to be ‘Doyle’ but that is by the by. Needless to say, I was at a very impressionable age when ‘The Professionals’ was just about the only thing worth watching on TV.
Brushing ‘The Professionals’ to one side, Lewis was the driving force behind the TV film ’ Who Dares Wins’ & I’m told he lost both his money & his reputation during this project.
Now that every man & his dog knows the colour of the boathouse at Hereford, the true SAS veteran can only be identified by their knowledge of what, exactly, happened when Lewis Collins turned up at the gatehouse at Hereford . . . ?
He was also a musician in the '60s, he played bass in “The Mojos”. I thought this would have got a mention when they were paying tribute to him on the ITV news!
I am privileged to have met Lewis on a couple of occasions- the chap was a gentleman and in person was a long way from the hard man image portrayed by the professionals - that’s not to say he could not handle himself, I certainly wouldn’t have liked a right hander of him- but he had a real soft side . he also did a lot of free work for the forces on BFBS and was a supporter of SSAFA
He was a talented actor . and while Bodie made him a household name it also killed his career as he was forever seen as the hard man and people couldn’t cast him in other roles- another icon of my era gone
I saw Martin Shaw at a theatre play in London.Brilliant actor.Stood on stage in a white string vest and white Y fronts as part of the character he was playing.
That takes guts to do that.The image of Jy
udge Deed goes out the window.
I also saw The Shawshank Redemption at a theatre with the actor in Benidorm who died.In Benidorm he played the part setting up a mobility scooter business that caught fire.
Anotger brilliant actor.
Lewis Collins died today, personally I always wanted to be ‘Doyle’ but that is by the by. Needless to say, I was at a very impressionable age when ‘The Professionals’ was just about the only thing worth watching on TV.
It was a typical product of the 1970’s TV producers when,as I saw it,just like music,we had some of the best TV programmes like The Sweeney etc,and comedy programmes like On The Buses before political correctness had been heard of,compared with before or since.It’s difficult to understand why actors like Dennis Waterman,John Thaw,and George Cole all seem to have been subject to the same type of erroneous idea,that being cast in those programmes,which were about as good as TV gets,was then for some reason regarded as a negative issue regarding their careers.When without those roles in those pogrammes they all would have been rated a lot less in the eyes of their audience.
The fact is programmes like The Sweeney and The Professionals and Minder etc,together with many other 1970’s TV productions,did a lot more for the credibility of their stars than programmes of later years like The Bill did for the credibility of their stars.IE the stars are only as good as the roles and the quality of the productions that they are cast in.The Proffesionals being one of the best of those productions and,like it’s stars,was a product of it’s time.
