Gordon Jackson

Gordon Jackson started off as a draughtsman for Rolls Royce, but the entertainment industry soon came calling. His immense body of work in film and television is a testament to his raw talent and his dedication to the craft. Some of his most memorable film outings involved grisly ends for his characters. He starred as one of the intrepid British POWs dedicated to busting out and disrupting the German forces in "The Great Escape." Unfortunately, his character was one of the unlucky escapees to be subsequently captured and executed by the SS, as an example to the others. He also starred as Jock Carswell in "The Ipcress File," a spy thriller centered on the brainwashing of scientists (IPCRESS stands for the ominous sounding "Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under Stress"). Jackson's character discovers the plot, only to be murdered before he can reveal it to the film's protagonist, played by Michael Caine.

Gordon Jackson's TV characters fared better. He was best known to the British viewing public as the loyal butler, Angus Hudson, in the TV series "Upstairs, Downstairs" (a reference to the socio-economic divide between servants living downstairs and the rich household living upstairs).