Derren Nesbitt

Rather intriguing British actor who first appeared on UK cinema & TV screens in the late 1950s, and quickly found steady work as a rather unpleasant or untrustworthy individual. His cold, yet cunning features had him appearing in guest roles on many UK TV series including The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956) and William Tell (1958), and the 1960s then proved to be his busiest period of work! Nesbitt put in strong, intelligent performances in the WW1 aviation spectacle The Blue Max (1966), as a cold war agent pursuing Frank Sinatra in The Naked Runner (1967) and probably his best remembered role, as Major Von Hapen, an ice cold Gestapo officer nearly foiling Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton plans in Where Eagles Dare (1968) The talented Nesbitt also wrote, directed and starred in the fairly tepid The Amorous Milkman (1975) and was kept busy through most of the 1970s in further espionage / action films. Before the end of that decade, however, demand for his talents began to wane heavily (following a series of newspaper stories suggesting he could be as unpleasant in real life as some of the characters he played on-screen) and in the 80s and 90s, he made appearances in only a handful of films. His last film appearance to date was in the crime thriller Double X: The Name of the Game (1992).