As part of the BBC’s DoNation season, Holby City and Casualty join forces for a special interactive episode in which viewers can vote to determine the outcome of an organ donation storyline.
Central to the process will be Casualty’s director of emergency medicine Harry Harper, who’ll reveal the decision at the end of the show.
Casualty star Simon MacCorkindale was ordered to pay 5,000 to a cyclist who suffered serious head injuries in a hit-and-run car accident.
MacCorkindale, 53 who plays consultant Harry Harper in the hospital drama was also banned from driving for two months after knocking over cyclist John Lilley.
The actor married to seventies screen beauty Susan George- told magistrates he collided with Mr Lilley after sneezing at the wheel of his Mercedes and losing control.
During the Seventies, actor Simon MacCorkindale was one of our biggest heartthrobs. These days, he runs his own film company and has returned to the small screen in Casualty. But it could all have turned out differently…
My father was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and in the first 17 years of my parents’ marriage — I was born in the second year — they moved house 21 times. So it was a very nomadic upbringing. There was a bit of rogues and vagabonds about it, which is what actors used to be.
I always invented games, which I think came out of being a child in the air force and never having the same group of friends for very long, so, in the end you have the potential to become quite insular. My brother, who is a couple of years younger, and I used to invent things together.
Actor Simon MacCorkindale, who plays Harry Harper in the BBC hospital drama Casualty, has been banned from driving for two months and ordered to pay £5,000 after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident in which a cyclist was left with head injuries.
Simon MacCorkindale Plays Harry Harper, Consultant
Simon describes Harry in five words
The Master Of Everyone’s Destiny!
How has Harry developed over series XVIII?
“As well as having to deal with an NHS consultant’s hours, Harry has had to come to terms with the loss of his wife while looking after his five children. He finds it a very difficult juggling act and he can’t just walk away from them. He is haunted with the guilt of not being where he should have been at the time of the fateful car accident.”
Simon MacCorkindale might now be more familiar for his role on Casualty, But we decide to remind him of his time when he could turn into any animal he wanted, in his superhero guise of … Manimal!
Possibly the most bizarre of a plethora of superhero action series that Glen Larson launched upon an unsuspecting television audience in the Eighties, Manimal starred Simon MacCorkindale as Dr Jonathan Chase, a tuxedo-clad university professor who helped the police using his unique special power. At the merest hint of trouble, he could turn into any animal he desired. Whether panther, elephant or mouse, a barrage of plastic special effects, throbbing foreheads and elongating fingers signaled his transformation as he stomped or scurried to thwart a dastardly crime. MacCorkindale took to the role with aplomb, a dashing hero with charisma and charm, but alas the combination of his debonair good looks and demented special effects were not enough and the show only lased for eight episodes after its star-studded pilot first aired.
Translated from the original French, so readability is a little strange. Translated by SMCFP Member Nadeia
The man-animal, is one of the most popular myth: Minotaur, Sphinx, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Island of Dr Moreau, Tarzan, The Fly, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Werewolf, the Beast of Gévaudan, Cat people, The Creature from the black Lagoon, and The Man from Atlantis, to list only the most famous which inspired widely legends, literature, movies, comics and television.
After the bionical man (the six million dollars man), knight rider (K2000), cybernetic man (Automan), the writer-producer-director Glen A. Larson and Donald Boyle, decided to adapt the myth of the man-animal.
Casualty Saturdays BBC1 Name Simon MacCorkindale Age 50 Education Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, Studio 68 of Theatre Arts, London Role Call Could easily have been typecast as an urbane hunk, but has achieved a diverse gallery of roles – from classics to soaps – in TV, film and theatre. Also a writer, director and producer who runs his own production company, Amy International, with his actress wife, Susan George
Consultant Harry Harper is spending what he hopes will be a nice day out at the fair with his kids. But you just know that, this being the first episode in a new series of CASUALTY, disaster is looming.
Sure enough, it’s not long before Harry is dealing with one of the biggest and goriest disasters ever to hit Holby – a crash involving the air ambulance which is called to an emergency at the fair.
The dashing actor, 50, veteran of long-running US shows such as Falcon Crest, joined the show as caring consultant Harry Harper earlier this year and he says: “It is a big commitment. It is very intensive – we work 49 weeks a year.
“I was worried about the balance of my life and I am still a bit worried but I knew what I was doing. I have been in TV from a young age.”
Simon MacCorkindale, back on television as Casualty’s new consultant, has been delivering foals rather than lines of late…
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I was never too comfortable as a young actor and always felt that my best time in the business would be around now – I’m 50 – through to the age of 65 I’ve been doing a lot of production work in the past ten years, as well as writing and directing, so the opportunity to do something very visible – in a great part – was much too good to miss My character in Casualty [new consultant Harry Harper] is a disciplinarian, slightly old-fashioned, but pretty cool I’ve been filming since February and it’s a really nice show to be in – egos are at a minimum.
Smoothy Simon MacCorkindale has had more than his fair share of visits to A&E
Playing the likes of Manimal’s Jonathan Chase and Falcon Crest’s Greg Reardon, actor Simon MacCorkindale has earned himself the reputation as one of TV’s eternal bachelor boys. But it’s as a family man that he’ll be seen from this week, playing Casualty’s new consultant, Harry Harper.
He’s recently moved to a new home, not far from where CASUALTY is made, and was looking for a local company to make him a mask for his character in the Sky 1 series Relic Hunter.
And it was then that he found himself wandering onto the CASUALTY set in Bristol, to meet the hospital drama’s special effects team.
Simon MacCorkindale: Why I need time away from Susan
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Simon MacCorkindale is convinced he would have become the Army’s youngest general. He feels his dogged determination, dashing looks and slavish adherence to discipline would have sent him hurtling up the ranks. Indeed, thanks to his father’s contacts, a glittering military career was once guaranteed; instead, he chose to become the nearly man of British cinema, a decision he puts down to an in-built self-destruct button which he presses whenever his life is running smoothly.
To the horror of his family, Simon put showbusiness before the Army, and his role opposite Mia Farrow in Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile in 1978 won him the Most Promising Film Actor award when he was 26. From there, anything seemed possible. Only now, years later, after disappearing from the movie actor radar, is he acting again, this time as Harry Harper, a dashing doctor in the BBC’s hospital drama, Casualty. He is expected to cause a stir with his character, who is married but has a penchant for sexy girls; a natural extension to the love-rat image from his TV heyday in the 1980s, when he played Greg Reardon in Falcon Crest.
Holby is to have a familiar face coming through its doors when actor Simon MacCorkindale joins the cast of Casualty. The former Falcon Crest and Manimal star has appeared in a long list of US productions, and is delighted to be back working in the UK. “I’ve always been a fan of Casualty” he reveals. “It’s great to be joining such an established show with a lovely bunch of people.” Simon will play consultant Harry Harper, and his first episode will be on screen in May.
Take A Break In Mauritius Before She Launches Her New Singing Career And He Prepares For A Starring Role In Hit Hospital Drama Casualty
Even the most assiduous actress needs rest and refreshment. But seven long years had passed without Susan George taking time out in the sun. “I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed holidays,” says the fine-boned blonde with the fierce work ethic and a long-ago romantic link with Prince Charles.
Age: 53 Style: Dashing English gent Significant others: Divorced Fiona Fullerton, his wife of five years, in 1981, and three years later married another actress, Susan George. He says: ‘I’ve always felt my time as and actor and leading man is now’ – on his starring role in Casualty Finest Hour: His performance in Death On The Nile in 1978 won him the Most Promising Actor award and made his famous. Don’t Mention: Driving. He was banned for two years last month after a hit-and-run accident, and had to pay £5,000 damages. Anything else? Simon’s first wedding was held in St Paul’s Cathedral, London – an honour granted to him because his father, an RAF officer, was awarded an OBE.