Angus Lennie
Angus Wilson Lennie was a Scottish film, television and theatre actor with a 50-year career. His numerous credits include the character of Flying Officer Archibald Ives in The [Great Escape |The Great Escape], and Shughie McFee in the television soap opera Crossroads.
Early life
Lennie was born and raised in Glasgow, receiving formal education there at Eastbank Academy. During his childhood he was a member of the 94th Glasgow Company of Scotland's Boys' Brigade.Lennie started his career in show business at the age of 14 whilst engaged in an apprenticeship as a stockbroker's clerk, and appeared whilst still a teenager in song and dance acts at the Glasgow Metropole, his diminutive size at 5 ft 1" aiding his nimbleness in performance. After briefly trying stand-up comedy on Scotland's variety circuit post-World War II, and service with Her Majesty's Armed Forces as a Conscription in [the United Kingdom|National Serviceman], after a period performing in song and dance, and comedy routines, in the English seaside towns along the South-East coast, he decided to become an actor, and took up a trainee position with the Perth Repertory Company in his early twenties, and went on to work with repertory companies in Oxford and Birmingham.
Television
Lennie's earliest major role was as Davie "Sunny Jim" Green in BBC Scotland's comedy series, Para Handy - Master Mariner in 1959–60. Other TV credits include: Target Luna, The Saint, Doctor Who, The Borderers, Z-Cars, Rumpole of the Bailey, Lovejoy, The Onedin Line, All [Night Long |All Night Long], Keeping Up Appearances and Monarch of the Glen.Lennie had a long-running role as cook Shughie McFee in the soap opera Crossroads, which he played from 1974 to 1981. He left the show without his character being formally written out. This infamously led to characters in soap operas disappearing without explanation being classed as "in the kitchen with Shughie McFee."