He played Lonely in the TV thriller series Callan, starring Edward Woodward, and shop steward Harry in the Yorkshire Television sitcom The Gaffer (1981–1983) with Bill Maynard.

He made guest appearances in television series such as The Sweeney, Doctor Who, Taggart, A Touch of Frost, The Bill and The Return of Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of Silver Blaze.

[3][4] Born Russell Ellis in Glasgow, Hunter's childhood was spent with his maternal grandparents in Lanarkshire, until returning to his unemployed father and cleaner mother when he was 12.

In the same year, he appeared in the film The Gorbals Story,[1] which featured members of the Glasgow Unity Theatre including Archie Duncan and Roddy McMillan.

Hunter's other TV credits include The Sweeney (as a gay petty criminal and informant, Popeye, very similar to his Callan character Lonely), Ace of Wands (as the evil magician Mr Stabs, a role that Hunter twice reprised in episodes of two anthology series Shadows and Dramarama), Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death (1977),[6] Farrington of the F.O., The Bill, A Touch of Frost, Taggart, sitcoms Rule Britannia (1975) as the Scotsman Jock McGregor and shop steward in The Gaffer (1981–83), and his last ever TV appearance, in the BBC drama Born and Bred.

[citation needed] In 1970, he married actress Caroline Blakiston after they both appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park.

Although in the advanced stages of cancer, Hunter's last theatrical stint was in the Reginald Rose play 12 Angry Men at the same, if inconceivably expanded, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with which he had remained inextricably linked.

[5] In November, American Cousins, Hunter's last movie role, received the Special Jury Prize at the Savannah Film Festival in the United States, ending a career spanning six decades.