Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, he was a notable Hamlet at the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow and a successful Macbeth at the Edinburgh International Festival.

[3] He played King Humanity in Tyrone Guthrie's Festival production of Sir David Lyndsey's Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis in 1959.

In 1962, he joined the Edinburgh Gateway Company, playing James Boswell in Robert McLellan's Young Auchinleck.

[7] He was in This Man Craig on television, while his many films include Lucky Jim, A Night to Remember, Operation Bullshine, The Flesh and the Fiends, Victim, Cleopatra and Jason and the Argonauts.

The play, titled There Was A Man, was presented at the Traverse Theatre, running for over two months due to high demand.