Charles Lawson
Charles Lawson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Quintin Charles Devenish Lawson 17 September 1959 Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland |
| Occupation | Actor |
Quintin Charles Devenish Lawson (born 17 September 1959) is a Northern Irish actor. He is best known for playing Jim McDonald in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. Lawson also appears as Doctor Black in the 2016 BBC drama My Mother and Other Strangers.
Early life and education
Lawson was born in[1] in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. He was educated at Campbell College (a grammar school) in Belfast, and later at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Career
Lawson has appeared in at least three films and in at least twenty television productions. He is probably best known for appearing as Jim McDonald (who is originally from Belfast) in the ITV television soap opera Coronation Street. He first appeared as Jim in 1989 and remained a regular character for the next 11 years, since which time his appearances have been few and far between.
His other television work includes appearing as Seamus Duffryn in the 1982 Yorkshire Television thriller miniseries Harry's Game (also known as Belfast Assassin), based on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and as Trigg in the 1989 television film The Firm. He has also appeared in various other television series including Doctors (twenty-four episodes), Bread (eleven episodes), The Bill (three episodes) and Rosemary & Thyme (one episode).
In 2000, Lawson made a programme for ITV Granada, Passion for Peace, which followed him back to Northern Ireland and reported on the creation of the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Centre in Warrington.
In 2005, Lawson appeared in the TV documentary Titanic: Birth of a Legend.
In 2009, Lawson appeared alongside an eight-foot Frankfurter sausage in a German television commercial, advertising hot dogs. His overdubbed catchphrase in the commercial is Betrachten Sie die Größe meiner Wurst! (English: "Look at the size of my sausage!").
In 2010, Lawson revealed that he would be returning to Coronation Street for its fiftieth anniversary celebrations. He speculated that bosses may be planning to kill his character off, however, this never happened.[2] He stayed until April 2011. Lawson then returned for a three-month stint on the soap between August and November 2014. His brief return coincided with the imprisonment of Peter Barlow (Chris Gascoyne) after he was wrongly accused of murdering Tina McIntyre.
In 2015, Lawson made a guest appearance in an episode of the Comedy Central sitcom Brotherhood as the father of the three main characters.
Personal life
In a 2008 programme, Lawson admitted to supporting the actions of Loyalist paramilitaries during the Ulster Workers' strike in 1974.[3]
In 2010, Lawson and his partner Debbie Stanley opened a farm shop in Prestbury.[4]
He is a supporter of Scottish football club Rangers.
Notes
- ^ The Campbell College Register 1894–1999. Belfast: Campbell College. 1999. pp. 1–568.
- ^ Charles Lawson (Jim McDonald) to return to Coronation Street Archived 9 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Coronation Street hardman Lawson was fascinated by Loyalist gangs" Belfast Telegraph 26 October 2008 Retrieved 2 September 2012
- ^ Sheridan, Emily (12 October 2010). "Now former Coronation Street actor Charlie Lawson opens a farm shop". Daily Mail. London.