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Simon MacCorkindale (1952 - 2010)
MacCorkindale & Isabella Calthorpe in 13 Hrs
As Andrew Boles in A Closed Book
As Peter Gilkes in Beasts
Simon MacCorkindale & Catherine Bach
As Dennis Robillard in Earth: Final Conflict
As Lucius in Jesus of Nazareth
MacCorkindale as David Clement in
As Patrick Kelly in No Greater Love
As Hank Richards in Falcon's Gold
He was very friendly and I mentioned to him about seeing him when he came to Nottingham to perform in Sleuth.
As Walton Baden Smythe in
Simon MacCorkindale & Linda Hamilton in
As the Flight Boss in Wing Commander
Simon MacCorkindale & Ami Dolenz in
As Jack McCabe in The Dinosaur Hunter
Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, in 1952, the son of Peter MacCorkindale, a former RAF Group Captain, and Gill Pendered. Simon, his parents, and his younger brother, Duncan, lived in Edinburgh when his father was a station
station commander. Simon was educated at Haileybury College (later becoming head boy) in Hertfordshire from 1965 until 1970.
Whilst still at the school, he joined thee
the Air Training Corps with ambitions to follow his father into the RAF, but this was thwarted because his eyesight was not sufficiently good.
Haileybury College, Hertfordshire
Simon MacCorkindale
A childhood love for drama led to a place, in 1971, at Studio '68 of Theatre Arts, in South Kensington, London, where he took acting classes and revealed a real talent. At the end of his first year there, he was spotted playing the lead in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets at the George Bernard Shaw festival in Ayot St Lawrence, and promptly signed up to an agent whilst still at drama school.
He made his stage debut as Captain Blackwood in Bequest To The Nation (1973) at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, before appearing in Shaw's Pygmalion (1974) alongside Alec McCowen and Diana Rigg at the West End's Albery Theatre. He performed his one-man show The Importance of Being Oscar at the 1977 Cambridge Festival, and again four years later at the Globe Playhouse, before direct
Simon MacCorkindale as Simon Doyle
.....with Mia Farrow
.....with Mia Farrow & Lois Chiles
.....with Peter Ustinov in Death on the Nile
As Andrew Wyke in Sleuth
directing The Merchant Of Venice (1981) in Los Angeles and Sleuth (1982) in Houston and Dallas. He played the part of crime writer Andrew Wyke in a national tour of Sleuth (2008) with Michael Praed, and then took over the role of Captain Von Trapp in a London Palladium production of The Sound Of Music (2008-9).
As Von Trapp in The Sound of Music
MacCorkindale made his film debut in the ocean-liner disaster filmm
film Juggernaut (1974). More important though was his appearance in Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile (1978) playing Simon Doyle, on honeymoon in Egypt with his wife, Linnet (Lois Chiles), who is murdered. The film, starring Peter Ustinov as Poirot, won McCorkindale the London Evening Standard Film Award as 'Most Promising Newcomer' and gained him much recognition to a wider
With Jenny Agutter in Riddle of the Sands
wider public. This was quickly followed by Riddle in the Sands (1979), with Michael York and Jenny Agutter.
However, his acting career was destined to be extensively in television. He made his TV debut as Lieutenant Carter in Hawkeye, The Pathfinder (1973), followed by a string of one-off roles in series including General Hospital
As Paris in Romeo and Juliet
Hospital (1974); Sutherland's Law (1975); Beasts (1976) and Within These Walls (1976). He played Paris in Romeo And Juliet (1976), Lucius Caesar in I, Claudius (1976) and Lucius in Jesus Of Nazareth (1977), the ITV epic directed by Franco Zeffirelli. The role of a young astronomer Joe Knapp, saw him team up with John Mills as the Professor in the four-part Quatermass (1979), while in an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) he plays Gaylord who claims to be an English cousin of the Dukes.
With Barbara Kellerman in Quatermass
With John Mills in Quatermass
in The Dukes of Hazzard
The Manions of America
After his appearances in Death onn
on the Nile and Riddle of the Sands, MacCorkindale looked for success in America, appearing as an English aristocrat David Clement, alongside Pierce Brosnan and Kate Mulgrew in the mini-series The Manions Of America (1981), about a family of 19th-century Irish immigrants. Other American TV roles followed in episodes of Fantasy Island (1981), Hart To Hart (1982) and Dynasty (1982).
With Kathryn Leigh Scott in
Visitor from the Grave
As Lewis Clarkson in Cabo Blanco
As Philip FitzRoyce in Jaws 3-D
Manimal (1983) proved to be an unpopular, eight-episode American TV series in which Simon MacCorkindale played Jonathan Chase, a man who can change into any animal in order to fight crime!
Simon MacCorkindale & Melody Anderson
in Manimal
MacCorkindale's big break came when he was offered (without auditioning!) the role of British lawyer Greg Reardon in the glossy soap opera
Simon MacCorkindale as Greg Reardon
in Falcon Crest
With Laura Johnson in Falcon Crest
opera Falcon Crest (1981-1990), the tale of the feuding Channing and Gioberti families in the Californian wine industry. MacCorkindale joined the cast three years into its run
run, eventually turning down a further contract with Falcon Crest in 1986 and returning to Britain
Simon MacCorkindale in Sincerely, Violet
It was then that MacCorkindale set up the production company Amy International, named after Amy, the Straw Dogs c
Dogs character played by the British actress Susan George whom he had married in 1984. Thee
The company, based at Shepperton Studios, produced films that included Stealing Heaven (1988); That Summer of White Roses (1989) and The House That Mary Bought (1995).
in Counterstrike
Simon MacCorkindale as Peter Sinclair
MacCorkindale continued to act, and became executive production consultant and star of the successful US cable-television
television adventure series Counterstrike (1990-93), playing ex-Scotland Yard inspector Peter Sinclair, who becomes a private troubleshooter fighting terrorism. He appeared in all 65 episodes of this popular drama, filmed in France and Canada.
At the Midnight Hour
Simon MacCorkindale & Patsy Kensit in
The Way to Dusty Death
This led to roles in a succession
This led to roles in a succession of American TV films came his way throughout the 1990s including Richard Keaton in At the Midnight Hour (1995); Adam Novacek in Family of Cops (1995); Patrick Kelly in Danielle Steele's No Greater Love (1996); Johnny Harlow in The Way to Dusty
Dusty Death (1996) and Baden Smythe in Running Wild (1998).
While My Pretty One Sleeps
Simon MacCorkindale as Jack Campbell in
Running Wild
At the turn of the 21st Century
With illness becoming an increasing problem, MacCorkindale left the demanding schedule of Casualty. Apart from a numbers of guest appearances on daytime TV programmes like The Alan
Dark Realm
Other TV work included an episode of the science fiction series Earth: Final Conflict (2000); the adventure drama The Dinosaur Hunter (2000) and two episodes of the mystery thriller Dark Realm (2001).
Century, MacCorkindale was back in Britain, becoming known to a new generation of British TV viewers when he joined the popular, extremely long-running BBC hospital drama Casualty, as the consultant Dr Harry Harper. He appeared in 229 episodes from 2002 - 2008. His character was also seen in the spin-offs Holby City (2004-05) and Casualty @ Holby City (2005).
With Elizabeth Carling in Casualty
MacCorkindale as Dr Harper in Casualty
Alan Titchmarsh Show (2008); The Wright Stuff (2008) and BBC Breakfast (2008), he appeared in A Closed Book (2010); 13 Hrs (2010) and an episode of the comedy crime series New Tricks (2010). This was to be hisl
his last acting role.
As Sir David Bryant in New Tricks
Simon MacCorkindale was married to the actress Fiona Fullerton in 1976 but they divorced in 1982.
Fiona Fullerton
Simon MacCorkindale &
After a brief relationship with American actress Linda Purl, he then married Susan George in 1984. They first mettt
met at a charity concert in the Grosvenor House in London in 1977 and over the next few years became good friends.They married in secret in Fiji, but later held a second ceremony for their family and friends back home in Berkshire.
© Hello! Magazine
Simon MacCorkindale & Susan George featured in Hello! Magazine (May 1995)
In May 1995, Hello! Magazine ran a feature on them, complete with some lovely photos taken at the farm that was then their home. With Susan's love of horses, they later moved to a stud farm in Devon where they bred champion Arabian horses.
Simon with Susan George
In 2006, MacCorkindale was diagnosed with bowel cancer and, a year later, it spread to his lungs. He changed to a 'macrobiotic' diet and various alternative medicines in an attempt to combat
combat it - giving up work and spending 12 weeks in Atlanta, where he had extensive treatment before returning to Britain.
Sadly, the disease took his life on 14th October 2010.
Signed photo of Simon MacCorkindale
I met the actor Simon MacCorkindale in London in October 2008 where he was one of the guests at Autographica, along with his wife, Susan George.
