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Alexander Morton, who has died of heart failure aged 81, was a stalwart of Scottish theatre, finding a wide audience on television as Golly Mackenzie in the BBC’s Sunday evening feelgood drama Monarch of the Glen, based on Compton Mackenzie’s novels.

As the only cast member to appear in all 64 episodes of the seven series (2000-05), he played the loyal gamekeeper and ghillie, guiding hunting and fishing parties on the fictional Glenbogle estate in the Scottish Highlands.

The tone is set for Morton’s character at the start, with Golly – real name Aloysius – trying to catch a gang who are stealing precious osprey eggs while Archie MacDonald (played by Alastair Mackenzie) returns from London to rescue the struggling estate owned by his parents, the laird Hector and his wife, Molly (Richard Briers and Susan Hampshire).

Although sometimes gruff, Golly can be kind-hearted and sensitive, as well as a stabilising presence and source of wisdom. He is also the keeper of Highland traditions and customs, which creates tension when Archie introduces tourism and other commercial ventures to bring in money.

But a dark secret is revealed with the arrival of Jess (Rae Hendrie), his long-lost daughter from a failed relationship. After experiencing more heartache with unrequited love from a new housekeeper, Irene (Rebecca Lacey), he has a brief romance with a dance teacher, Meg (Karen Westwood), who dies after giving birth to their son, Cameron.

Happiness appears finally to arrive for Golly in the last episode. He has long held a torch for Molly following her husband’s death and she declares her love for him.

Morton’s warm, sympathetic character was a far cry from Andy Semple, the villain of the piece he played earlier in the ITV soap Take the High Road from its launch in 1980 until 1994. He lost his job as sawmill manager in the fictional Glendarroch for stealing money before his scams and shady business dealings led to periods in jail and the breakup of his marriage. Dipping in and out of Take the High Road suited Morton, enabling him to accept other TV and stage roles.

He returned to playing villains for a three-year run (2012-15) in the BBC Scotland soap River City. As Billy Kennedy, he was a violent gangster involved in crime and drug-dealing in the fictional Glasgow West End district of Shieldinch. Morton returned for the 20th-anniversary episode in 2022.

The actor, known to friends and colleagues as Sandy, was born in Glasgow, the second son of Isabella (nee Paterson) and Alec Morton, an RAF leading aircraftsman, and he attended Penilee secondary school.

Seeing Marlon Brando in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire spurred him on to act. He trained at Central School of Speech and Drama (1965-68), started his career in repertory theatre in Cheltenham and made his screen debut as an undertaker’s assistant in the gangster film Get Carter (1971).

On returning to Scotland in 1975, he began a long association with Borderline theatre company that included acting in Billy Connolly’s first play, An’ Me Wi’ a Bad Leg Tae (1976), and taking the title role in William Wallace (1984).

In 1986, Morton played both Robert the Bruce in The Bruce at the Edinburgh festival and the national bard in Robert Burns with the Scottish theatre company at the Citizens’ theatre, Glasgow. “Alexander Morton broods sardonically … with the dark good looks of the poet and a disconcerting dash of Colonel Gaddafi,” wrote the Financial Times critic.

Four years later, with Robert Carlyle, Caroline Paterson and others, Morton founded the experimental theatre group Raindog. His starring roles included a subtle, chilling performance as RP McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1991) and a very human Macbeth (1992), giving the Scots-language production “a rock-hard, believable core”, observed Scotland on Sunday’s reviewer.

Morton’s television roles in Scotland included a Glaswegian tough guy alongside Leslie Grantham in Winners and Losers (1989) and parts in Rab C Nesbitt (1992), Strathblair (1993), The Tales of Para Handy (1994), Taggart (three roles, 1985-2010), Looking After Jo Jo (1998) and Shetland (2013). In England, he acted detectives in Firm Friends (1992-94) and Second Sight (1999-2000).

In films, he played a paedophile gang boss in London to Brighton (2006) and the chieftan who has enslaved the one-eyed Norse warrior played by Mads Mikkelsen, in Valhalla Rising (2009).

Morton became the first actor to play Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh detective Rebus when he starred in a 1999 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Let It Bleed and he voiced characters in video games, including Zoltan Chivay in the first two Witcher sequels (2011 and 2015).

His son, Jamie (the writer and heritage consultant AJ Morton), twice acted with him on screen: as a younger version of Morton in the film Silent Scream (1990) and his son in the TV Crime Story episode Stedul: The Yugoslav Hitman (1994). One of his stepchildren is the actor Leo Woodall.

Morton’s first two marriages, to the actor Pam Scotcher in 1967 and Denise Scott in 1977, ended in divorce. He is survived by his third wife, Jane (nee Ashton), whom he married in 2004; his daughter, Kerry, from the first marriage, and son, Jamie, from the second; and Connie, Gabriel and Leo, his stepchildren from the third.

• Alexander Edwards Morton, actor, born 24 March 1945; died 14 April 2026