Gordon
Jackson was one of the stalwarts of British television in the 1970s,
though he also had extensive stage and screen experience going back
to the 1940s. A Scot, he began his career playing small parts in
a series of war films made by the Ealing Studios and others, initially
typecast as a weakling but gradually winning recognition as a useful
character actor specializing in stern, well-mannered gents of the
"stiff upper lip" variety, often lacking in a sense of humour. His
rich Scottish accent, however, balanced this with a certain charm
and it was this combination of sternness and warmth that characterized
most of his roles on stage and screen.
During
the 1950s, Jackson continued to develop his film career and was
also busy in repertory theatre, making his debut on the London stage
in the farce Seagulls Over Sorrento in 1951. Other acclaimed
roles on the stage included an award-winning Horatio in Tony Richardson's
production of Hamlet in 1969, Tesman in Ibsen's Hedda
Gabler, and Malvolio in Twelfth Night. In the cinema
he gradually moved from young soldiers and juvenile leads in the
likes of Millions Like Us, Tunes of Glory, and Whisky
Galore to major supporting parts in such films as The Ipcress
File, starring Michael Caine, and The Prime of Miss Jean
Brodie, which was adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark. By
the 1960s it was apparently automatic for Jackson's name to crop
up whenever a genial, but crusty Scotsman was required, whether
the production under discussion was a wartime epic or something
more homely.
As
a television star, Jackson really came into his own in 1971, when
he made his first appearances in the role of Hudson, the endearingly
pompous butler in the classic period drama series Upstairs, Downstairs.
Over the next five years, Jackson, as one of the central characters
in this hugely popular series about Edwardian life, became a household
name--a status formally acknowledged in 1975 when he won the Royal
Television Society's Best Actor Award (followed later by his being
made an Officer of the British Empire). As Hudson, a character the
actor himself professed to dislike, Jackson was in turn supportive
and dependable and dour and infuriating, not least through his old-fashioned
attitudes to the other servants and any inclination they showed
to forget their station.
Not
altogether dissimilar in this regard was Jackson's other most famous
television role, the outwardly contrasting part of George "The Cow"
Cowley in the action adventure series The Professionals,
which was first seen in 1977. As Cowley, a former MI5 agent and
now head of the specialist anti-terrorist unit CI5, Jackson combined
a hard-bitten determination and impatience with his wayward operatives
Bodie and Doyle (Lewis Collins and Martin Shaw) with genuine (if
grudging) concern for their well-being when their lives were in
danger. This too became favourite viewing for peaktime audiences
in the 1970s, as much through the chemistry of the three main performers
as through the somewhat formulaic car-chases and action sequences
that were included. Not that the series did not have its critics--many
people protested at the violence of many episodes (leading the producers
to limit explosions to two per story) and others refused to accept
that Jackson, still firmly associated in their minds with the stuffy
Mr Hudson, could ever be convincing as a tough anti-terrorist chief,
notwithstanding his early experience in the Ealing war films.
Also
worthy of note were Jackson's always reliable appearances in other
classic television programmes, which ranged from Doctor Finlay's
Casebook to the Australian-made A Town Like Alice and
Stars on Sunday (as host).
-David
Pickering
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Gordon Jackson
Photo courtesy of the British Film Institute
GORDON
CAMERON JACKSON. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, 19 December 1923.
Attended Hillhead High School, Glasgow. Married: Rona Anderson;
children: Graham and Roddy. Engineering draughtsman and actor for
BBC radio in Glasgow, from 1939; film debut, 1942; debut on London
stage, 1951; subsequently specialized in Scottish character roles
in films, television and on the stage; best known to television
audiences for the series Upstairs Downstairs and The Professionals.
Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 1979. Recipient: Clarence
Derwent Award for Best Supporting Actor, 1969; Royal Television
Society Award for Best Actor, 1975; Emmy Award for Best Supporting
Actor, 1976. Died 14 January 1990.
TELEVISION
SERIES
1970-75
Upstairs Downstairs
1977-83 The Professionals
MADE-FOR-TELEVISION MOVIES
1968
The Soldier's Tale
1977 Spectre
1979 The Last Giraffe
1981 A Town Like Alice
1986 My Brother Tom
1987 Noble House
FILMS
The Foreman Went to France, 1942; Nine Men, 1943; Millions
Like Us, 1943; San Demetrio--London, 1943; Pink String
and Sealing Wax, 1945; The Captive Heart, 1946; Against
the Wind, 1948; Eureka Stockade, 1948; Floodtide,
1949; Stop Press Girl, 1949; Whisky Galore, 1949;
Bitter Springs, 1950; Happy Go Lovely, 1951; Lady
with a Lamp, 1951; Castle in the Air, 1952; Death
Goes to School, 1953; Malta Story, 1953; Meet Mr Lucifer,
1953; The Love Lottery, 1954; The Delavine Affair,
1954; Passage Home, 1955; Windfall, 1955; The Quatermass
Experiment, 1955; Pacific Destiny, 1956; Women Without
Men, 1956; The Baby and the Battleship, 1956; Sailor
Beware, 1956; Seven Waves Away, 1957; Let's Be Happy,
1957; Hell Drivers, 1957; The Black Ice, 1957; Man
in the Shadow, 1957; Scotland Dances (voice only), 1958;
Blind Spot, 1958; Rockets Galore, 1958; Three Crooked
Men, 1958; Yesterday's Enemy, 1959; The Bridal Path,
1959; Blind Date, 1959; The Navy Lark, 1959; Devil's
Bait, 1959; The Price of Silence, 1960; Cone of Silence,
1960; Snowball, 1960; Tunes of Glory, 1960; Greyfriars
Bobby, 1961; Two Wives at One Wedding, 1961; Mutiny
on the Bounty, 1962; The Great Escape, 1963; The Long
Ships, 1964; Daylight Robbery, 1964; Those Magnificent
Men in Their Flying Machines, 1965; The Ipcress File,
1965; Operation Crossbow, 1965; Cast a Giant Shadow,
1966; Fighting Prince of Donegal, 1966; Night of the Generals,
1966; Triple Cross, 1967; Danger Route, 1967; Three
to a Cell, 1967; Casting the Runes, 1967; Talk in
Craig, 1968; The Eliminator, 1968; Negatives,
1968; On the Run, 1969; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,
1969; Run Wild Run Free, 1969; Wind v Polygamy, 1969;
Hamlet, 1970; Scrooge, 1970; The Music Lovers,
1970; Singing Sands, 1970; Rain, 1970; Allergy,
1970; Dickens Centenary, 1971; Kidnapped, 1971; The
Befrienders, 1971; Budgie, 1971; The Man from Haven,
1972; Madame Sin, 1972; Square of Three, 1973; Places
Where They Sing, 1973; Places in History, 1974; J.
M. Barrie Lived Here, 1975; Russian Roulette, 1975; The
Treasure, 1976; Supernatural, 1977; The Golden Rendezvous,
1977; The Medusa Touch, 1978; Captain Beaky, 1980;
Father's Day, 1982; Strange But True, 1983; The
Shooting Party, 1984; Shaka Zulu, 1985; The Masks
of Death, 1985; The Whistle Blower, 1986; Gunpowder,
1987.
STAGE
(selection)
Seagulls Over Sorrento, 1951; Moby Dick, 1955; Hamlet,
1969; Macbeth; Hedda Gabler; What Every Woman Knows; Noah; Twelfth
Night; Cards on the Table; Mass Appeal.
See
also Upstairs,
Downstairs
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