Alan MacNaughtan

Alan MacNaughtan (4 March 1920 – 29 August 2002) was a Scottish stage, television, and film actor born in Bearsden, Dunbartonshire. He received his education at the Glasgow Academy before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he graduated in 1940 with the Bancroft Gold Medal. His career spanned more than four decades, encompassing work at the Old Vic, the West End, Broadway, and in British television and film productions from 1954 through 1999.

MacNaughtan made his Broadway appearances between 1959 and 1967, performing in three productions: the play Duel of Angels, the play The Fighting Cock, and After the Rain. His stage work extended to Laurence Olivier's National Theatre, where his performances drew considerable acclaim, among them a 1972 revival of The Front Page in which he played Walter Burns.

On British television, MacNaughtan accumulated a substantial body of work across the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He appeared in guest roles on Dr. Finlay's Casebook, The Avengers, The Baron, Department S, The Saint, and The Professionals, as well as in the ATV/ITC productions The Maze in 1966 and Who Plays the Dummy? in 1969. In the same year he portrayed Major Brenan, a deceptive MI5 agent, in the Randall and Hopkirk Deceased episode The Ghost Talks. His sharp features led to frequent casting as villains in ITC series. MacNaughtan took on the recurring role of Sir Geoffrey Wellingham in Yorkshire Television's The Sandbaggers and played Dr. Crawley in Thames Television's Mr Palfrey of Westminster. In 1981 he appeared in the BBC serial To Serve Them All My Days as the acerbic teacher Howarth. He portrayed Sir Percy Browne, head of MI5, in the 1988 production A Very British Coup, and made his final television appearance in Kavanagh QC in 1999.

His film work included a role alongside Dirk Bogarde in the 1961 film Victim, in which he played Bogarde's disapproving brother-in-law. Additional film credits include Frankenstein Created Woman in 1967, Patton in 1970, Family Life in 1971, Shadowlands in 1985, The Last Days of Patton in 1986, Blue Ice in 1992, and The Commissioner in 1998. MacNaughtan was a friend of actor Alec McCowen. He died of cancer on 29 August 2002 at the age of 82.