Johnny Beattie

Scottish actor and stand up comedian (1926–2020)
the rugby player

John Gerard Beattie, MBE (9 November 1926 – 9 July 2020) was a Scottish actor and stand up comedian whose career spanned over six decades. He appeared on shows including the sketch show Scotch & Wry and the sitcom Rab C. Nesbitt, and later appeared in more dramatic roles including Malcolm Hamilton in the soap opera River City.

Beattie was born in Govan, Glasgow, on 9 November 1926 into a working class family. He grew up there with an older brother, Frank, and two younger sisters, Mary and Cathie. He attended St Gerard's Roman Catholic Secondary School, but left school at sixteen to start an apprenticeship and became involved with amateur dramatics, and by the mid 1950s he had become a stand up comedian. Beattie went on to appear on Rikki Fulton's sketch show Scotch & Wry, at one point appearing as his alter ego Glaikit O'Toole, who encounters Fulton's character Supercop in one of the sketches. While on the set of Scotch & Wry, he met actor Gregor Fisher, with whom he went on to appear in the 1990s sitcom Rab C. Nesbitt. In 1990, Beattie starred in The Big Man alongside Billy Connolly and Liam Neeson. He had a couple of local hit records with "Scotch on the Rocks" and "The Glasgow Rap" and presented radio shows on BBC Radio Scotland and Clyde 2 before he was cast as Malcolm Hamilton in the Scottish soap opera River City, a role which he had retained since the show began in 2002. He was the Honorary President of the Scottish Music Hall Society.

Beattie married Kitty Lamont in 1950. They had two daughters (Maureen, an actress, and Louise, a solicitor and former actress) and two sons (Paul and Mark). Beattie and Lamont separated in 1982, and she died in 1994. Beattie died on 9 July 2020 at the St. Margaret's Hospice in Clydebank, aged 93.

Beattie was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 New Year Honours list. He received the 1981 Benno Schotz award as TV Personality of the Year. He received the Lord Provost's Performing Arts Award in 1993.