John Cairney, who achieved distinction on stage and screen as Robert Burns, has passed away at the age of 93. The Glasgow-born actor also appeared in the films Jason and the Argonauts and the Titanic drama A Night to Remember.
Before becoming a regular on television and in films, he received training at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) and was a critically acclaimed stage actor.
In his later years, he became a renowned painter. John Cairney was born in 1930 in Glasgow’s Baillieston neighborhood. He attended art college momentarily before dropping out to pursue a career as an actor.
After graduating from drama school, where he met his first wife, Sheila, he launched a successful career in the theater. He appeared in the Bristol premiere of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and as Hamlet at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.
In the adventure film Jason and the Argonauts from 1963, his character is killed by the alive bronze statue Talos.
In the 1970s, he starred in the BBC Scotland drama Scotch on the Rocks as an SNP politician with ties to paramilitary groups and the Soviet Union.
The series, which was based on a novel by conservative politician Douglas Hurd, was extremely controversial and was never repeated.
Cairney began his lengthy association with Robert Burns in 1965 when he portrayed the poet in the production There Was A Man at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre. The play was subsequently broadcast on television, and Cairney recorded an album of the performance.
The remainder of his career would be spent traversing the globe with his one-man production about the poet Robert Burns. The title of his autobiography from 1987 was The Man Who Played Burns.
Cairney performed plays about William McGonagall, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh to honor other Scottish figures.
He resided in New Zealand for many years with his second wife, Alannah. The couple relocated to Glasgow in 2008, where Cairney picked up his paintbrushes and received renewed acclaim for his paintings.
Alannah and five children from his first marriage survive him. A representative of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, formerly known as the RSAMD, stated:
“We are devastated to learn of John Cairney’s passing. John was a participant in our very first acting program and essentially the first student to enter the classroom when it opened in 1950.
“Throughout his life, he was an ardent proponent of the transformative power of the arts and arts education, as well as the transformative power of performance. He was a wonderful individual who will be greatly missed.”
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