AN ACTORS' actor, Fraser Kerr was born and brought up in Springburn, Glasgow, where he trained, making many appearances on Scottish Radio as a boy and teenager. He joined the Fraser Neal Players doing repertory at Edinburgh and Glasgow, was in several Scottish pantomimes for the same company, and appeared at the Edinburgh Festival with Sonia Dresdel in Miss Julie and The Spring of Others.
On his arrival across the Border he was in repertory at Paignton, Retford, and Leicester. In the 1955/56 season as a member of the Old Vic Company, directed by Tyrone Gutherie and Robert Helpman, he appeared with John Neville, Coral Brown, and Paul Rogers in Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Troilus and Cressida - playing at the Old Vic, touring Canada and the United States, and appearing at The Winter Gardens Theatre on Broadway. Other West End appearances included an enormous success as Carnoustie Bligh in Watch It Sailor with Kathleen Harrison at both the Aldwych and Apollo Theatres; The Hard Man at the Donmar and the Arts Theatre; and the musical Brigadoon at the Victoria Palace. He toured in The Hasty Heart as Lachlen with Patricia Plunket and This Happy Home with Dorothy Summers, and most importantly, in Night Must Fall with Dame Sybil Thorndike, Sir Lewis Casson, and Adam Faith.
Films in which he featured included Theatre of Death; Carry on Regardless; Nothing But The Night, and Walt
Disney's Thomasina; and on television in Upstairs, Downstairs; The Wicked Women Plays; Howard's Way; Doctor in The House; On The Buses; Please Sir; Never a Cross Word; Yes, Prime Minister.
He is pictured (above) in his role as powerboat tycoon Bob McIntyre in Howard's Way.
On radio he was particularly popular having been in the BBC Drama Rep Company four times, making at least 600 programmes.
Fraser was very well known as the reader of The Morning Story, and especially as Richard Hannay in Norman Wright's production of John Buchan's The Adventures of Richard Hannay series.
He died on March 19 of cancer at the Middlesex Hospital.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article