Upstairs, Downstairs

Gordon Cameron Jackson, OBE was a Scottish Emmy Award-winning actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals. Gordon Jackson was born in Glasgow in 1923, the youngest of five children. He attended... Hillhead High School, and in his youth he took part in BBC radio shows including Children's Hour. He left school aged 15 and became a draughtsman for Rolls-Royce. His film career started in 1942, when producers from Ealing Studios were looking for a young Scot to act in The Foreman Went to France and he was suggested for the part. After this, he returned to his job at Rolls-Royce, but he was soon asked to do more films, and he made the decision to make acting his career. Jackson soon appeared in other Ealing films, including San Demetrio London, The Captive Heart, Eureka Stockade and Whisky Galore!. In the early years of his career, Jackson also worked in rep in Glasgow, Worthing and Perth. In 1949, he starred in the film Floodtide, along with actress Rona Anderson. He and Anderson married two years later on 2 June 1951.
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Thomas & Sarah is a British drama series that aired on ITV in 1979. The only spin-off from the BAFTA Award-winning series Upstairs, Downstairs, it stars John Alderton and Pauline Collins reprising their Upstairs, Downstairs roles. Following the end of Upstairs, Downstairs in 1975 there were many ideas for spin-offs, and the idea for Thomas & Sarah was originally given the name In Confidence by Alfred Shaughnessy and John Hawkesworth. At... a memorial service for Cyril Bennett, the LWT Controller who had died in November 1976, his successor Michael Grade agreed to do a programme with John Alderton and Pauline Collins, now a celebrated television couple, reprising their former roles. In October 1977, John Hawkesworth was commissioned to write a synopsis for the programme, and it was filmed from September 1978 to March 1979. The writers, many of whom had worked on Upstairs, Downstairs, were Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham, Alfred Shaughnessy, Jeremy Paul, Anthony Skene, Alick Rowe and Angharad Lloyd. Thomas & Sarah follows the adventures of Thomas Watkins, the chauffeur, and Sarah, the house and nursery maid, after leaving service at Eaton Place in 1910.
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