News about Edward Woodward

Take the dark murders that play out on the desolate Scottish isles in Shetland, mix in the sinister religious rituals of film The Wicker Man, set in the Hebrides, and you'll get something like Alibi's creepy new series The Red King.  Except the action here takes place on a remote Welsh island, where the locals practise their own pagan religion and dance on the streets in eerie masks. Much like Edward Woodward's Sgt Howie in The Wicker Man it follows a city cop, who in this case has been dumped on the island as a punishment, only to end up isolated, vulnerable and terrified. The Lazarus Project's Anjli Mohindra (pictured left and right) plays Sgt Grace Narayan, banished from her city beat after whistleblowing on colleagues.

Brain VINER: In the classic folk-horror film The Wicker Man, Britt Ekland, above, bared all. Or so audiences in December 1973 were led to believe. 'But I've got an **** like a ski slope,' she cried as she learned that her backside will be revealed to the camera, so director Robin Hardy obligingly recruited a comely 'bottom double'. Despite the filmmaker's sleight of hand, or rather haunch, The Wicker Man was a thrillingly daring film. It's a little old now, but it's still horribly scary and, in some cases, scary. Edward Woodward was sent by a devoutly Christian policeman, Neil Howie, to look for a missing teen on a remote Hebridean island where the locals, including the pub landlord's flirtatious daughter Willow (Ekland), were in thrall with the sinister laird. (Christopher Lee). Lee, who used to say he had appeared in more films than anyone else, had no idea that The Wicker Man was the pick of them. Despite Woodward's tragic ending, he did.

His father was the producer of one of the most frightening movies ever made, with one of the most striking denouements in movie history. And yet, when you ask Justin Hardy what he thinks about The Wicker Man, Robin's directorial masterpiece, his answer may be as unexpected as the film's shocking ending of a ferocious human sacrifice. Following the starkly observed tale, which features Edward Woodward as a buttoned-up, devoutly Christian cop on a Hebridean island of Summerisle to investigate the possible disappearance of a schoolgirl and finds himself confronted by a community in thrall to a pagan sect, will continue to gain cult following.

On Monday, Britt Eckland looked stunning as she attended the 50th anniversary of her film The Wicker Man at the Picturehouse cinema in London. As she joined a whole host of her former co-stars at the festival, the Swedish actress, 80, showcased her age-defying appearances. Willow MacGregor of the now famous 1973 drama, which followed the story of policeman Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) as he hunts for a missing child on the small Scottish island of Summerisle.

CHRISTOPHER STEVENS PERSONAL EDITOR CHRISTOPHER STEVENS of PC Joan MacIver is caught in a murder on her isolated rural beat. She can't go anywhere without her broom. The bulk of us knew of crime prevention on the west coast of Scotland prior to the film Highland Cops (BBC2) (first shown in Scotland last Sunday): Hamish Macbeth, the cosy mystery series from the mid-1990s starring Robert Carlyle, was the first to be published in Scotland. Hamish was quite forgettable, unlike British horror film The Wicker Man, which starred Edward Woodward as a police sergeant on a Hebridean island. He is sacrificed as a human sacrifice and is buried alive in a pagan ritual.

On Thursday, the theatre director (left), who received a coveted Tony award for one of his Broadway performances, died on Thursday. Since contracting Covid in 2021, aged 82, the eldest son of a Texas oil millionaire had been fighting for his life. In what his partner Felicity Kendal referred to as a'scary time', he was treated for two weeks on an intensive care ventilator. I think I can speak to a lot of people about the fear being overwhelming, with the shame being a real struggle.'