TAGGART star Alex Norton has admitted using heroin and that he came close to becoming an addict.
The popular actor, who played the lead in the police drama for eight years, has revealed how he feared his own exploits with the drug could have ended with a prison sentence.
The 64-year-old, who grew up in Glasgow's south side, said: "The drug is so evil and pernicious. You start to take it and it seems like a bit of fun.
"You feel great and all your anxieties disappear. But then you realise you want more."
Norton, whose autobiography There's Been A Life! was recently published, began acting as a teenager, landing roles in leading Scottish dramas such as This Man Craig and Dr Finlay. He found his way into acting via stints as a folk musician, eventually joining agitprop theatre company 7:84.
He went on to develop an illustrious TV and film career, with roles in movies including blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and White Hunter, Black Heart, with Clint Eastwood.
However Norton, who played DCI Matt Burke in the Taggart series, suffered serious depression for a major part of his early career and had an "obsessive" personality.
The extremes, he believes, were fuelled by the death of his mother when he was just 15. Sarah Norton died from kidney failure.
The actor says his depression was exacerbated by a lack of confidence. He believed he was something of an acting pretender, having never gone to drama school; this was never an option given his plumber father was determined his son would follow in his footsteps.
Norton, married to actress Sally Kinghorn, the mother of the couple's three sons, says he tried to overcompensate for his lack of formal education by working hard to try to become the very best actor he could be.
For him, taking heroin was an extreme example of Method acting.
"I went too far," he says, of the experiment. "And before I knew it I was sitting outside a drug dealer's flat at midnight, waiting to buy smack."
He adds; "I throw myself headlong into things. I've taken lots of chances. But the heroin was a chance too far."
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