Ken Stott

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Ken Stott as Rebus

Ken Stott is a Scottish film and television actor, particularly known in the United Kingdom for his many roles in the latter medium. Born Kenneth Campbell Stott in 1955 in Edinburgh, his father was a Scot and his mother was Sicilian.

For three years in his youth he was a member of a band called Keyhole, members of which later went on to form the Bay City Rollers. After attending Mountview Theatre School in London, Stott began working in the theatre for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of twenty, but for some years his earnings from acting were minimal and he was forced to support himself by also working as a double glazing salesman. This is echoed in the character he plays in Takin' Over the Asylum.

He appeared in small roles in BBC series such as The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare (King Lear, 1982), Secret Army (1985) and Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective (1986), before he eventually began to earn starring roles on television in the 1990s.

His highest-profile television roles have included the leading character, DCI Red Matcalfe, in the BBC crime drama series Messiah (BBC One, 2001-date); as a drunk who fantasises about finding redemption by joining the Salvation Army in Promoted to Glory (ITV, 2003); as Adolf Hitler in Uncle Adolf (ITV, 2005) and as a fictional Chancellor of the Exchequer in Richard Curtis's The Girl in the Café (BBC One, 2005). As of 2006 he is starring in the detective series Rebus, a television adaptation of the Ian Rankin novels.

In film, he has tended to play mostly supporting parts, such as DI McCall in Shallow Grave (1994), Ted in Fever Pitch (1997) and Marius Honorius in King Arthur (2004). However, he has had occasional starring roles on the big screen, most notably opposite Billy Connolly and Iain Robertson in The Debt Collector (1999).

Stott has also continued to act in the theatre, and in 1997 was nominated in the best actor category at the Laurence Olivier Awards for his role in the play 'Art' in 1996.

Aged thirty, Stott married a director's assistant named Elizabeth, and they had one child, Bill, in 1985. However, the marriage later broke up and Stott's current partner is the actress Di Sherlock.