The hardest toughest meanest fellah on the telly has gone and popped his clogs, the wonderful EDWARD WOODWARD has died. People think of tough mean spies like James Bond and Jason Bourne, etc, but the meanest and most ruthless was a fellah in an old suit ,a battered macintosh and a wooly scarf tied in the old fashioned way your dad and grandad would've tied it ,not the trendy way of tying scarves beloved of every 'celeb' these days. He had one friend ,a pathetic smelly little man called 'Lonely', who ,when he wasn't beating him up, used to remark on his lack of personal hygene as he gulped his whiskey, as he liked a drink a little too much .None of your 'Vodka martini, shaken not stirred ', for this fellah, but a pint and a large whisky. This was CALLAN....An assassin for a deniable section of the secret service. Everybody remembers the swinging lightbulb which swung over the opening morose music, then the single shot smashing a mirror with Callans reflection. Anthony valentine ,wonderfully vicious and nasty as Toby Meres, Callans partner, even though they couldnt stand the sight of each other. And the late Russell Hunter as Lonely.He did a film ,THE WICKER MAN, which was a B-film until it attained cult status to become a classic. I thought Woodward was great,but the all singing dancing CHRISTOPHER LEE took more than i was able to give, to get my head around that.I nearly killed a nephew when he said it was a rip off, of the NICHOLAS CAGE film. Another cracker was a court room drama in the Boer war, BREAKER MORANT, based on a true story.
Callans original story 'A MAGNUM FOR SCHNEIDER' was made as a film. And a few years later Callan was back in a one off telly film, THE WET JOB.....No, He hadn't gone into the porn biz, it wasn't mucky, just had to come out of retirement and murder someone, as you do.
Then he became THE EQUALISER, which gave him a chance to drive around the streets of New York in a nice Jag and blow the baddies to bits.It brought fame fortune and a couple of heartattacks. From cleaning the streets of New York he came back to England to clean the streets of an English town in a corporation bin wagon inCOMMON AS MUCK. But he was in tons of stuff ,always had that mean steely eyed Callan look, even took over CI5 when they did the NEW PROFFESSIONALS. But that in a shell casing is one of my favourites, MR EDWARD WOODWARD(Even if his name did sound like a fart in a bath.)
