
Acting
Alex McAvoy
Born — Died
1928-03-10 — 2005-06-16
Place of birth
Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
16 titles
Alex McAvoy (March 10, 1928 – June 16, 2005) was a Scottish actor known for his roles as Sunny Jim in the BBC Scotland adaptation of Neil Munro's Para Handy stories, The Vital Spark, and as the teacher in Pink Floyd's musical film, The Wall.
Known for
7.2Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.
Minder
1979
7.5Introducing the Walmington-On-Sea home guard. During WW2, in a fictional British seaside town, a ragtag group of Home Guard local defense volunteers prepare for an imminent German invasion.
Dad's Army
1968
6.0A series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.
The Play on One
1988
8.0A troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.
Pink Floyd: The Wall
1982
6.3An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.
Oliver Twist
1999
6.5In the western isles of 1930s Scotland, Peter 'Para Handy' MacFarlane, captain of the puffer Vital Spark, treks around the coastal waters of west Scotland and variously schemes himself and his crew into mischief.
The Vital Spark
1965
Film credits
1980s · 7 titles
8.0A troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.
Pink Floyd: The Wall
1982
NRIt is the 1950s: Bill Thompson is a middle-class English boy sent by his father to serve an engineering apprenticeship on the Clyde. He lodges with a Greenock family, and forms an attachment to his landlady, Mrs Mulvenny , which is to affect his life for the next 20 years
Portrait of Isa Mulvenny
1985
10.0Carl is a US Navy Shore patrol officer who is based at the Holy Loch naval base in Scotland. Armed only with a nightstick, his primary function is to ensure that sailors on shore leave do not become too rowdy, and to provide help to sailors in need of assistance. Carl is married to a local girl and their relationship is at breaking point - she wants to leave Scotland and settle in America while he wants to remain in Scotland. With his brother-in-law Willie, who is already estranged from his wife and under threat of redundancy from his shipyard job, the two men forge a friendship to help each other through.
Down Where the Buffalo Go
1988
6.8Pink Floyd released a 19-minute "video EP" in 1983 for The Final Cut, essentially four music videos in a continuous sequence, directed by Willie Christie, who was Roger Waters' brother-in-law. Scottish actor Alex McAvoy, who played the teacher in the film version of The Wall, had a prominent role in the video EP. Waters appears (though all but his mouth is silhouetted) as a patient singing the lyrics to a psychologist on the grounds of the Fletcher Memorial Home.
Pink Floyd: The Final Cut
1983
A summer evening in Edinburgh, 1776. The ailing philosopher David Hume has an unexpected visitor.
Dialogue in the Dark
1989
It is crazy to think that the severed paw of a monkey can change destiny. Isn't it?
The Monkey's Paw
1988
5.3Produced for Scottish television, Venus Peter was financed by the Orkney Islands Council. The title character is transformed into a "sea child" when he is baptized with salt water. Though his family tries hard to accustom him to life on land, Peter (Gordon R. Strachan) yearns to go to sea -- or, at the very least, to escape his cloistered community. He finds a kindred spirit in Princess Paloma (Juliet Cadzow), the village "looney," who, alas, is eventually carted away to an institution. Briefly fascinated by poetry and music, thanks to his lovely teacher Miss Balsibie (Sinead Cusack), Peter is disillusioned when he finds his teacher in the arms of her lover (and out of her clothing). The final blow to Peter's idealism comes when his grandfather's ship is repossessed. Despite the bleakness of his surroundings and his seemingly dead-end existence, however, Peter never completely lets go of his dreams, and the film ends on a positive note.
Venus Peter
1989
1970s · 2 titles
6.5Having left her husband, Hilary moves in with her unbalanced brother, Pink, who uses wit and humor to hide his amorous yearnings.
Brotherly Love
1970
4.8The true story of the events leading up to the infamous massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells in February of 1692.
The Massacre of Glencoe
1971
Series credits
7.2Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.
Minder
1979
7.5Introducing the Walmington-On-Sea home guard. During WW2, in a fictional British seaside town, a ragtag group of Home Guard local defense volunteers prepare for an imminent German invasion.
Dad's Army
1968
6.0A series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.
The Play on One
1988
6.3An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.
Oliver Twist
1999
6.5In the western isles of 1930s Scotland, Peter 'Para Handy' MacFarlane, captain of the puffer Vital Spark, treks around the coastal waters of west Scotland and variously schemes himself and his crew into mischief.
The Vital Spark
1965
9.0A young woman in rural Scotland faces hardship after hardship as she struggles to keep her family farm going through personal losses and the devastation of World War I.
Sunset Song
1971

