Actor and writer

Born: September 24, 1946;

Died: July 14, 2019

Rony Bridges, who has died of cancer aged 72, became an actor by accident in his fifties when a set designer came into his antiques shop in Glasgow looking for props and thought that the tall, slim proprietor, with his lean features and long silver hair, would be perfect as a gangster in Peter Capaldi’s film Strictly Sinatra (2001).

Recalling his first day working with the future Doctor Who, who was director rather than actor on Strictly Sinatra, Bridges said: “He gave me my first ever direction in a film. He called out to me on set ‘What’s your name?’ And I said Rony. And he said ‘Move out of shot Ronny, you’re too tall.’ I did about ten weeks on that film, but blink and you’ll miss me.”

But Bridges had broken into the business, he acquired an agent and over the next 15 years he went on to appear in small roles in about a dozen other movies, including Valhalla Rising (2009), playing the Viking Crusader Magnus, and Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), in which he was an admiral with the First Order.

He was also a playwright and that was by accident too, which came as a result of him regaling actor David Hayman with his tales about growing up in Springburn in Glasgow in the 1950s. Bridges and Hayman shared a room when they were working with Hayman’s humanitarian charity Spirit Aid in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and Hayman encouraged Bridges to turn his reminiscences into a play.

Six and a Tanner, a darkly humorous one-man show, debuted at the Oran Mor in Glasgow in 2006, went on a national tour and attracted glowing reviews at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe.

As the sole actor Hayman shared the stage with a coffin containing the body of his character’s father. It begins with him recalling how his father told him there was no Santa Claus when he was just four years old, having previously branded Santa a cheap bastard for giving the boy a toy plane that was made out of clothes pegs and immediately fell to bits.

One day the father brought home a kitten that turned out to be a panther cub stolen from Calderpark Zoo and on another occasion the mother ran off with the postman. There was also a sequel in 2007 entitled 23756, about the protagonist’s relationship with his mother, the title being the family’s Co-op membership dividend number. Bridges admitted to a little artistic licence here and there.

Born in Glasgow in 1946, Bridges studied Advertising and Marketing at Glasgow University according to at least one casting directory. In reality his education ended when he left Albert Secondary School, by which time he had been working for several years part-time as a bookie’s runner and had already shown entrepreneurial promise trading comics and cigarettes on the estate where he lived.

He served an apprenticeship as a printer with Blackie and Son in Bishopbriggs. He lost both kneecaps and very nearly lost his life in a scooter accident, but defied doctors who told him he would never walk again. Eventually he opened an antiques shop in Glasgow’s West End and another in London. He also had an art gallery and a design company for a while.

“I used to have an antiques store and I supplied props for films like Trainspotting,” he said. “And a set designer asked to take my photograph one day. She didn’t tell me why. That evening I got a call to be on Peter Capaldi’s film.”

His other films include Young Adam (2003), with Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton, Dear Frankie (2004), with Gerry Butler, and The Decoy Bride (2011), with David Tennant. On television he played a detective in several episodes of Rebus early in his career and more recently a clan chief on Outlander.

The success of his play Six and a Tanner led to Barlinnie Prison as Playwright in Residence, a title which should not be taken entirely literally. He worked with prisoners through drama workshops. His association with inmates also helped him with writing a crime novel entitled Rogues Gallery (2013).

Even before his own show was staged at Oran Mor, Bridges was working there and was co-producer of their famous A Play, A Pie and A Pint lunchtime theatre events. It was there that he met his partner the singer Michaela Foster Marsh when she did a gig there in 2003. They got engaged but never married.

Bridges was also very involved in her charity Starchild, which works with vulnerable children and women in Uganda and built a school there for creative arts. He organised Art for Africa, with artists donating work for auction to raise funds. Starchild is currently raising money for a Sunflower Sanctuary for autistic children in Uganda in Bridges’s memory.

Four years ago he was told he had only two months to live after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Again he defied the doctors, one of whom he presented with a lightsabre in a glass case with the instruction on it “In case of emergency break glass”.

He is survived by his fiancée, a son Oliver from an earlier marriage that ended in divorce and a sister Sandie Gilchrist. A Celebration of Life service will be held at Netherlee Parish Church on July 30. Brian Pendreigh