Gareth Hunt

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Gareth Hunt
Hunt as Mike Gambit
Born
Alan Leonard Hunt

(1942-02-07)7 February 1942
Battersea, London, UK
Died(2007-03-14)14 March 2007 (aged 65)
Redhill, UK
Occupation(s)Actor, presenter

Alan Leonard Hunt (7 February 1942 – 14 March 2007), known as Gareth Hunt, was a British actor best remembered for playing footman

Frederick Norton in Upstairs, Downstairs and Mike Gambit in The New Avengers
.

Early life

Alan Leonard Hunt was born in

West Side Story
.

Television career

Hunt began his television career in 1968, playing Private Kitson in one episode of the UK series Frontier. In 1972, he played a

Bless This House, and the following year played Thomas Woolner in The Love School
.

In 1974, Hunt appeared in the

batman to James Bellamy.[4] The character was a minor one; however, his performance led producers John Hawkesworth and Alfred Shaughnessy to ask him to come back as a regular for the fifth series in 1975.[4] Hunt continued playing Frederick Norton, who had by now become the footman, until the eleventh episode of the fifth series, "Alberto
".

In 1975, he made appearances in The Hanged Man, Softly, Softly and Space: 1999.

In 1976, the year after leaving Upstairs, Downstairs, Hunt starred alongside Joanna Lumley and Patrick Macnee in The New Avengers. The show's producers said Hunt was cast because of his part in Upstairs, Downstairs.[4] He played secret agent Mike Gambit and starred in the show until its end after two series in 1977.

In 1979 he appeared in the films

It Couldn't Happen Here
.

Hunt starred in a series of television adverts for the instant coffee brand Nescafé in the 1980s,[4] with a trademark move: to shake his closed hand then open it, to reveal coffee beans, and smell the aroma.[5] He also starred in a Territorial Army recruitment film titled One of Us, set in the early 1980s. In it, he plays a Corporal Barrett; the story concerns a small anti-tank platoon from the 3rd Battalion (V) Royal Regiment of Wales going to Germany on exercises. The unit in question was located in the village of Pentre, Rhondda Fawr, South Wales. Like many other TA units it no longer exists.

From 1992 to 1993 Hunt had a leading role in the sitcom Side by Side.[4]

Hunt continued to have minor roles in many television programmes in the 1990s and 2000s, with appearances in

Ritchie Stringer, a crime boss who was an unlikely suspect in the shooting of Phil Mitchell, in EastEnders.[6] He had a main role in the short-lived soap opera Night and Day
in 2001.

For a brief time he abandoned acting and started a project called Interactive Casting Universal, a computer system that presented actors' details and showreels.[2]

Hunt suffered a heart attack in December 1999, and withdrew from a pantomime in Malvern.[2] In July 2002, he collapsed while performing on stage in Bournemouth.[7]

Death

Hunt died of pancreatic cancer, from which he had suffered for two years,[3] on 14 March 2007 at the age of 65, at his home in Redhill, Surrey.[5][6] He was married three times and had a son by each marriage.[2] His last wife, Amanda, is the mother of his youngest son, Jason.

Partial filmography

References

  1. ^ UK Civil Births Registration - HUNT, Alan L; Mother's Maiden Name - Stygall; District - Battersea; Volume 1d Page 397
  2. ^ a b c d e "Gareth Hunt - Obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 15 March 2007.
  3. ^ a b "New Avengers star Gareth Hunt dies". The Times. London. 14 March 2007.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Inside UpDown - The Story of Upstairs, Downstairs". Kaleidoscope Publishing. 2005.
  5. ^ a b "New Avengers Actor Dies". Sky News. 14 March 2007. Archived from the original on 16 March 2007.
  6. ^ a b "Avengers actor Gareth Hunt dies". BBC News. 14 March 2007.
  7. ^ "Hunt 'comfortable' after stage collapse". BBC News. 24 July 2002.

External links

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