Actor remembered with affection

THE owners of a Malvern restaurant have remembered with affection actor Simon MacCorkindale, who died last Thursday after a four year battle with cancer .

Link to the full article:  http://www.malverngazette.co.uk/news/8463272.Actor_remembered_with_affection/

Series: GMTV
First Aired: 3rd October 2007

Description: Simon appeared on GMTV to discuss The Unexpected Guest and his Casualty return

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This is the interview we managed to arrange for the site’s first birthday in April 2007 , though the interview was recorded late February. All answers are pretty much word for word what he replied. The interview was carried out at the Grand Theater in Wolverhampton. This is quite a long interview and the questions are out of order from when they were originally asked to make more sense.

Audio from the interview can be found on the forum

Question 000 – From shelliwood: How did you get the scar under your right eye?

How did I get the scar under my right eye? That happened when I was about 13 and I was playing cricket and I got hit by a cricket ball.

I hit a ball and it caught the edge of the bat and flew back up into my face, and hit me right under the eye, split it wide open. But it’s been there and I’ve used it, on a couple of jobs I did I actually highlighted it slightly and made it a feature of the character.

Did I use it in Manimal? Did I or not, do you know I can’t remember. I mean it was more noticeable, it become progressively less noticeable, I don’t even notice it anymore actually. I haven’t ever had anything done about it but as one’s face changes so does it. It also stated a little higher it was nearer my eye so it gets a bit lower, force of gravity (chuckle) or something like that.

Question 003 – From Kerri: Do you find it weird that there are fan sites about you?

I suppose I don’t find it weird because I did when it first happened and therefore having accepted it, I know it’s there.

When Lonna Poland approached my manager in California, which was probably 1982, she would know better than I, but I’m sure it was 1982, it seem to me to a very strange thing, seemed to be rather an American thing because I hadn’t really experienced it much in the UK. We discussed it, my manger said, ‘No this is really fairly normal and it’s not a bad things at all it’s good for PR, it a good way of communicating with fans and we can control a lot of thing so forth to a degree.’ So anyway I said to Lonna that we’d do it and we did. So having made that judgment, from then on I knew about fan sites and therefore I knew what it could be like and Lonna was exceptionally good at running it.

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Murder most Foul

Casualty Star Simon MacCorkindale talks about his latest play, Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest, and explains how close he came to playing James Bond. . .

What’s The Unexpected Guest about, Simon?

It’s the story of a man who arrives at a property in South Wales after having trouble with his car. When he enters the property he finds a dead body, and a woman who claims she’s responsible for the murder. The man, for a variety of reasons, decides to set about trying to give her an alibi…

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Casualty star Simon MacCorkindale has spoken for the first time about the moment he became a hit-and-run driver, abandoning a seriously injured cyclist in a remote country lane.

The 55-year-old actor, who plays consultant Harry Harper in the BBC hospital drama, hit John Lilley in a narrow lane near Taunton, Somerset, in 2005.

But instead of stopping to help, he made the split-second decision to continue on to Casualty rehearsals in Bristol.

Half an hour later, his conscience got the better of him and he called an ambulance to the scene.

MacCorkindale then drove to a police station to report the accident.

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Casualty’s Harry Is The Unexpected Guest

IT was typical of a doctor to keep you waiting. When have they ever kept their appointment times?

But as my consultation was with one of Holby City’s finest medics, the stoical Harry Harper, I was prepared to wait.

In the four years that actor Simon MacCorkindale has worn the lead stethoscope and a furrowed brow in the BBC’s flagship Saturday night soap he has set more than a few hearts fluttering on and off set.

But can the 54-year-old actor cut the mustard while temporarily back in civvie street on stage at Milton Keynes Theatre this week in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest?

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Series: This Morning
First Aired: 23 January 2007

Description: Simon appeared on This Morning to discuss his current play The Unexpected Guest

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Production: The Unexpected Guest (UK Tour)
First Performance: 9 January 2007
Character: Michael Starkwedder

Description: This was Simon’s first performance of The Unexpected Guest at the Theatre Royal in Windsor

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Casualty Heartthrob Simon MacCorkindale Opens His Heart To The People

I Still Dream Of Being The World’s No1 Stud*
(*But That’s Breeding Horses, Not Bedding Nurses)

As sexy Casualty consultant Harry Harper, he has set millions of female pulses racing.

But Simon MacCorkindale, who plays the handsome TV hospital rogue, has been happily married to actress Susan George for more than 20 years.

So it’s a shock to hear how he still dreams of being the world’s No1 stud.

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The Unexpected Guest

Agatha Christie

Following widespread critical acclaim for their star-studded production of The Hollow, the second production from The Agatha Christie Theatre Company promises to be another “beautifully staged and executed murder-mystery… a killer production of classic Christie class” (The Argus).

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Simon MacCorkindale

Michael Starkwedder

Simon MacCorkindale is perhaps best recognised as Harry Harper, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, in the BBC’s most popular and enduring drama series Casualty.

A childhood love for drama led to a place at Studio ’68 of Theatre Arts in London aged 19. On completing the course, he toured in regional rep before his West End debut in the highly acclaimed Pygmalion. He worked extensively on British TV, and in 1976 appeared in the renowned I, Claudius and in Zeffirelli’s opulent Jesus of Nazareth.

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