Remembering The Equalizer: Wicker Man and Equalizer star Edward Woodward passes away

British actor best known for his role in movies like the original 1973 film, The Wicker Man and the 1985 CBS action series Equalizer, Edward Woodward passed away yesterday.

The British movie and television veteran has been suffering from various illnesses, including pneumonia and was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003.

Making his debut in 1946, Woodward went to feature and star in many classic films, theatre plays and television series in the UK and stateside while achieving cult status film enthusiasts along the way.

Edward Albert Arthur Woodward was born in Croydon on June 1 1930, the only child of a factory worker, and educated at Kingston College. He made his stage debut aged five in a talent contest. His initial ambition was to become a journalist, but he settled for working briefly in a sanitary engineer's office. When he was only 16 he managed to gain a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After making his first professional appearance at the Castle Theatre, Farnham, in 1946, he attracted a loyal following of admirers during his years with the Croydon Repertory Company.

After graduation from RADA he worked extensively in repertory companies as a Shakespearean actor throughout England and Scotland, making his London debut in Where There's A Will in 1955 and also starred in the film adaptation that same year.

His work in the West End included Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet (1955), as well as Cyrano de Bergerac (1971). Having established himself, he also worked in Broadway theatre in New York and in Australia. Woodward first appeared on Broadway in Rattle of a Simple Man (1963) and the musical comedy High Spirits (1964–1965), which won three Tony Awards, followed by the 1966 comedy The Best Laid Plans.

After making his film and television debut in 1955 and mainly appearing in a series of supporting to bit roles, he finally got his big break in the ITV British spy/espionage series, Callan, which ran from 1967 to 1972. Supposed to be television's answer to James Bond on the big screen, Callan was broadcast by ITV from 1967 to 1972. Woodward's eponymous hero cut a lonely and unglamorous figure. While Bond moved in a world of gadgetry, fantasy and sex, Callan's universe was that of an outsider whose life as a professional killer was solitary and bleak.

In 1970 Woodward won a Bafta award for best actor for his role in Callan. But he became so closely identified with the part that when the series ended after six years, he had a job to find work in the theatre. In 1974 he starred in a feature film about Callan.

He would later achieve his biggest and most memorable film performance as Police Sergeant Neil Howie in the 1973 British thriller The Wicker Man, which would later be turned into a less impressive Hollywood remake with Nicholas Cage in Woodward's role.

Woodward would later play the title role in the 1980 Australian biographical film drama Breaker Morant, a film based on the court-martial of six officers of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), an irregular British force in the Boer War, was based on charges asserting that, between July and September 1901, a Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant had incited the co-accused, Lts Handcock, Witton and others under his command to murder some twenty people, including the Boer commando Visser, a group of eight Boer POWs, Boer civilian adults and children, and the German missionary Heese. The film would receive critical acclaim (it has 100% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) and would be nominated for the 1980 Academy Award for the Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium).

However most American mainstream audience would most likely to remember through CBS' hit urban vigilante action TV series The Equalizer where he played Robert McCall, a former secret agent of an unnamed organization, which was often referred to simply as "The Agency" or "The Company", who tries to atone for past sins by offering, free of charge, his services as a troubleshooter (often literally), a protector, and an investigator. People in need find him through a newspaper ad: "Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer." The show ran from 1985 to 1989 with a total of 88 episodes and won Woodward a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Dramatic TV Series in 1987 and several Emmy Award nominations.

He would later win an Emmy for his part as correspondent in the documentary program, Remembering World War II in 1989.

In 1990, Woodward starred in another American television series called Over My Dead Body, in which he played a mystery writer solving real crimes. Although it proved to be short-lived, it led the following year to his much more successful ITV true crime drama documentary series In Suspicious Circumstances, in which he guided viewers through some of the most celebrated British crimes of the 20th century.


One of Woodward's last performances was a supporting role in the 2007 hit action comedy Hot Fuzz, playing Mr. Jones in the fifth season of La Femme Nikita and in the 2009 season of BBC's EastEnders .

His other projects included the recording of twelve musical albums, as well as three albums of poetry and fourteen books to tape. His vocal capability and acting skill enabled him to make a number of appearances when time allowed on the BBC's Victorian era music hall programme, The Good Old Days.

Woodward was also a wargamer and hosted a series of programmes for Tyne Tees Television about the hobby with fellow enthusiast Peter Gilder, who built and owned the beautiful Gettysburg diorama used for one of the gaming scenes from the 1974 film Callan.

Woodward was married twice. His first marriage was to the actress Venetia Barrett (born Venetia Mary Collett) from 1952 to 1986. They had two sons: Tim Woodward (born 1953) and Peter Woodward (born 1956), both of whom became actors, as well as a daughter, the Tony Award-nominated actress Sarah Woodward (born 1963). Woodward left Barrett for actress Michele Dotrice, the daughter of his contemporary Roy Dotrice and best known for her role as Betty Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Woodward married Dotrice in New York in January 1987 and had a daughter, Emily Beth.

He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1978.

In 1996 Woodward underwent triple heart bypass surgery, and in 2003 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

He was taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro where he passed away on Monday, 16 November 2009, he was 79.

And we now we say good bye to another acting veteran of a time long passed, I remember first watching The Equalizer on TV back in Egypt around the 90's and for that, his portrayal of the British badass Robert McCall will always be in my memories.

R.I.P Mr. Woodward.



Equalizer star Edward Woodward dies at 79