1. William Fulton Beith Mackay was a Scottish actor and playwright, best known for his role as prison officer Mr Mackay in the 1970s television sitcom Porridge.
23 Facts About Fulton Mackay
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Fulton Mackay was brought up in Clydebank by a widowed aunt after the death of his mother from diabetes.
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On leaving school, Mackay trained as a quantity surveyor and later volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941, but was not accepted because of a perforated eardrum.
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Fulton Mackay then enlisted with the Black Watch and he served for five years during the Second World War, which included three years spent in India.
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Fulton Mackay worked at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh before gaining notice at the Arts Theatre Club, London, where in 1960, he played the part of Oscar in The Naked Island, a play about POWs in Singapore.
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In 1962, Fulton Mackay appeared at the same theatre, in Russian playwright Maxim Gorki's play The Lower Depths for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
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Fulton Mackay then acted with the Old Vic company and the National Theatre, performing in such productions as Peer Gynt and The Alchemist.
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Fulton Mackay was a director of the Scottish Actors' Company and, in 1981, a founder of the Scottish Theatre Company, playing Willie Souden in the company's production of Bill Bryden's play, Civilians, set in wartime Greenock.
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Fulton Mackay was acknowledged as a strong character actor in various television series.
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Fulton Mackay is best remembered for his namesake role from 1973 to 1977 as the comically ferocious prison officer, Mr Mackay, in the British sitcom Porridge, alongside Ronnie Barker.
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Fulton Mackay appeared in the film version of the series.
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Fulton Mackay returned to the role of Mr Mackay, now nearing retirement from HM Prison Service, in the first episode of Going Straight, the sequel series to Porridge.
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Fulton Mackay appeared as RAF psychiatrist Fowler in an episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and as a doctor in Doctor at Large in 1971.
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Fulton Mackay played John Everett in The Saint "The Best Laid Schemes" and Willie, a poacher in The Saint - Episode "The Convenient Monster".
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Fulton Mackay was cast as misguided scientist Doctor John Quinn in the 1970 Doctor Who story Doctor Who and the Silurians and was later seriously considered by producer Barry Letts to play the Fourth Doctor when Jon Pertwee announced he was leaving the role in 1974.
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Fulton Mackay played a regular officer running a training course in the Dad's Army episode "We Know Our Onions", a doctor in "The Miser's Hoard", and a detective in a Wodehouse Playhouse episode.
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Fulton Mackay often stayed true to his Scottish roots, acting in productions such as Play for Today's Three Tales of Orkney, in 1971, and The Master of Ballantrae, and as former Prime Minister Bonar Law in the 1981 TV series The Life and Times of David Lloyd George.
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Fulton Mackay played the Captain in the British version of the Jim Henson children's series, Fraggle Rock.
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In one of his last performances, Fulton Mackay portrayed an art forger in the Lovejoy episode "Death and Venice".
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Under the pseudonym of Aeneas MacBride, Fulton Mackay wrote plays for the BBC.
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Fulton Mackay did much work for the Glasgow children's charity Child and Family Trust.
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Fulton Mackay died from stomach cancer on 6 June 1987, at the age of 64.
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Fulton Mackay was buried at East Sheen Cemetery in southwest London.