1. Alan Leonard Hunt, known as Gareth Hunt, was a British television actor best remembered for playing footman Frederick Norton in Upstairs, Downstairs and Mike Gambit in The New Avengers.
18 Facts About Gareth Hunt
1. 2.
Alan Leonard Hunt was born in Battersea, London, in 1942.
3.
Gareth Hunt's father was killed in the Second World War when he was two years old, and he was brought up by his mother, Doris, and his stepfather.
4.
Gareth Hunt was then deported back to Britain, and while taking a BBC design course he held a variety of jobs, including stagehand, road digger, butcher's assistant and door-to-door salesman.
5.
Gareth Hunt began his television career in 1968, playing Private Kitson in one episode of the UK series Frontier.
6.
In 1974, Gareth Hunt appeared in the Upstairs, Downstairs episode "Missing Believed Killed" as Trooper Norton, batman to James Bellamy.
7.
Gareth Hunt continued playing Frederick Norton, who had by now become the footman, until the eleventh episode of the fifth series, "Alberto".
8.
In 1976, the year after leaving Upstairs, Downstairs, Gareth Hunt starred alongside Joanna Lumley and Patrick Macnee in The New Avengers.
9.
Gareth Hunt played secret agent Mike Gambit and starred in the show until its end after two series in December 1977.
10.
Gareth Hunt appeared alongside Julia McKenzie in That Beryl Marston.
11.
Gareth Hunt starred in a series of television adverts for the instant coffee brand Nescafe in the 1980s, with a trademark move: to shake his closed hand then open it, to reveal coffee beans, and smell the aroma.
12.
Gareth Hunt starred in a Territorial Army recruitment film titled One of Us, set in the early 1980s.
13.
From 1992 to 1993 Gareth Hunt had a leading role in the sitcom Side by Side.
14.
Gareth Hunt appeared in the TV movie The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo and the films Fierce Creatures, Parting Shots and The Riddle, and in 2001 played Ritchie Stringer, a crime boss who was an unlikely suspect in the shooting of Phil Mitchell, in EastEnders.
15.
Gareth Hunt had a main role in the short-lived soap opera Night and Day in 2001.
16.
Gareth Hunt suffered a heart attack in December 1999, and withdrew from a pantomime in Malvern.
17.
Gareth Hunt died of pancreatic cancer, from which he had suffered for two years, on 14 March 2007 at the age of 65, at his home in Redhill, Surrey.
18.
Gareth Hunt was married three times and had a son by each marriage.