Duncan Macrae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the rugby player, see Duncan Macrae (rugby player)

For the Gaelic poet and compiler, see Donnchadh MacRath.

Duncan Macrae (August 20, 1905-March 23, 1967) was born at 118 Kirkland Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, G20 6SP, the fourth of the six children of James Macrae, a sergeant in the Glasgow police force, and his wife, Catherine Graham. He attended Allan Glen's School and matriculated in the engineering faculty at Glasgow University in 1923–4, but did not graduate. Macrae was a Scottish actor and comedian with a glaikit (Scots word for naïve or clueless) mannerism.

He was a member of the early Citizens Theatre company in Glasgow and was best known in his early years for his performance as King James VI in Jamie the Saxt by Robert McLellan.

He had a role in the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore! (film), based on the book by Sir Compton Mackenzie, and in the first TV series of created by Neil Munro's masterpiece of west coast "high jinks", Para Handy - Master Mariner, he played the eponymous Captain. He had a home in Millport on the island of Cumbrae.^[1]

During the 1960s he appeared in episodes of the cult TV series The Avengers and The Prisoner, and as Inspector Mathis in the Bond spoof Casino Royale.

Macrae became a mainstay of television Hogmanay celebrations in the 1950s and 1960s with his rendition of the traditional song (in Scots language), The Wee Cock Sparra.