Actor and star of Bad Boys, Brookside and the National Theatre.

Born: September 21, 1950;

Died: December 22, 2016

FREDDIE Boardley, who has died aged 66 at his home in Glasgow, was an accomplished stage actor who also made a huge impact on national television,

To say Freddie Boardley was simply an actor is like saying Meryl Streep is good with accents. Boardley was one of Scottish showbiz’s most charismatic and talked-about characters, a man who lived life as though every moment were his last. He was a party animal and the West End of Glasgow, where he lived, his private enclosure. He was our very own Oliver Reed, but without the aggression.

And like Reed, Freddie Boardley could light up a screen. It’s no surprise that casting agents saw great potential in the mean, moody-looking Scot (once described by writer Peter McDougall as "James Dean wi' the flu") casting him in the major national soaps such as Coronation Street.

Boardley was all too often cast as the bad boy thanks to a sneer that could cause the largest of men to feel threatened. But the capacity to look malevolent simply highlighted how good an actor he could be. “Cops stop me all the time,'' he once recalled. “When I walk home from the pub at night in the West End they recognise my face and think I’m a gangster. It's an occupational hazard.''

Growing up in Ayr however young Freddie never figured he would become an actor. His father, Ivan Boardley had worked hard to build up a fishing business expecting his only son (he had three daughters) to take up the nets. But the teenager with the film star looks and multi-screen sized insouciance was hardly going to contain himself to a fishing boat.

But what to do? A short (and odd) stint in Agricultural College was followed by a slightly longer, and even more bewildering appearance in the Army. “Freddie joined because he liked the idea of wearing the uniform,” says his sister, Lynn Stenson. “It was a crazy move given this was a time of flower power and love, which Freddie was into. And he also hated being told what to do. It was no real surprise when my dad had to pay to get him out.”

The newly-freed Boardley “decided to get some Highers” and attended Langside College. The decision to study acting came about one night in a pub when it was revealed to him acting college was the perfect place to meet girls. Boardley graduated from RSAMD in 1974 and indeed met lots of young ladies, but he also built a solid career in theatre, appearing in the likes of Borderline Theatre’s production of Guys and Dolls alongside Phyllis Logan.

He went on to join the National Theatre for five years, appearing with John Hurt. "John liked me," Boardley once recalled. "I think it was I because I could drink as much as him."

Boardley’s bouts of hedonism certainly did not get in the way of his ability to perform and he picked up great reviews for cerebral theatre work such as Pirandello’s Six Characters In Search Of An Author and plays by Brecht, and Ibsen. However it was a McEwan’s Export advert which saw the Scot launched onto the network in 1995, alongside Londoner Karl Howman. Bad Boys, the BBC1 comedy-drama about two ex-cons, was written by the Rab C Nesbitt creator Ian Pattison who had noted the pair’s on-screen chemistry.

“I first met Freddie Boardley in a Glasgow bar during Mayfest, 1988,” says Pattison. “I asked him what he wanted to drink. ‘Vodka with ice, no slice.’ This was a phrase I’d come to know well. I liked Freddie immediately. He was gallus and totally deadpan. He smiled so seldom it was as though his face charged him money. He looked like the kind of guy who’d spin you round on the waltzer while seducing your sister at the same time. Luckily, I don’t have a sister, or a waltzer, so the theory was never put to the test.”

Boardley was a success in Bad Boys, just as he had revealed a real comedy bent in three episodes of Rab C Nesbitt and even Take The High Road. But he was often hired as much for his likeability as his talent. Alex Norton and Sandy Morton became close friends, as did Brian Cox. John Byrne loved him, casting him in several of his plays, including The Slab Boys. Director Bill Bryden was a Freddie Boardley fan, casting him in cult promenade productions of The Ship, and the Big Picnic.

Women too loved Freddie Boardley. Many of them. And although he never married, the actor was seldom short of female company, indeed he enjoyed a few long term relationships. But his partners tended to become infuriated by his lack of commitment to anything but serious drinking.

If Boardley had written his autobiography, which he often threatened to do, he would have told many tales of drunken nights, such as touring Spain with the National Theatre and meeting a very attractive woman, having his drink spiked – and waking up minus his £1000 watch, and all his clothes, in a strange hotel room. He would have told of his fun-filled hotel meeting with one of Abba (clue: it wasn’t either Benny or Bjorn). Yet it would not have been an actor claiming conquests; it would have been self-deprecating stories and more about a man revealing how he loved women.

Boardley certainly loved his mother, whom he would call every evening for exactly 59 minutes (his call plan allowed this free time) at her home in Ayr. And one long-term partner has spoken of the profound love the actor revealed for her children.

In recent years however, Boardley’s drinking really took its toll. He suffered from alcohol-related peripheral neuropathy, and the more he drank, the less often casting directors called. Two weeks ago, the actor sensed the final curtain, suffering blackouts. He even spoke of making a will (he never got around to it – reflecting his life of quiet chaos.) And it seemed he had few regrets, unlike his family, his mother . . . . and sisters Brenda, Irene and Lynn.

“We all looked up to Freddie,” says Lynn, with obvious sadness etched into her voice. “He was always fun, so talented with so many layers to him and so handsome. Yet, while Freddie loved acting, he loved playing his guitar and he truly loved life, he loved drinking more.”

Freddie Boardley’s funeral will take place at Ayr Crematorium on January 7 at 12pm. He asked that mourners wear Hawaiian shirts.

BRIAN BEACOM