John Cairney (16 February 1930 – 7 September 2023) was a Scottish stage, film and television actor who was well known to audiences in Scotland and internationally through his one-man shows on Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Service, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and William McGonagall.

Biography

Cairney was born on 16 February 1930 in the Baillieston area of Glasgow. He briefly attended art college but dropped out to pursue the life of an actor.

Cairney worked as an actor, recitalist, lecturer, director and theatre consultant. He was also a published author and an exhibited painter. Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, he was a notable Hamlet at the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow and a successful Macbeth at the Edinburgh International Festival. He played King Humanity in Tyrone Guthrie's Festival production of Sir David Lyndsey's Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis in 1959. In 1962 he joined the Edinburgh Gateway Company, playing James Boswell in Robert McLellan's Young Auchinleck. He was 'This Man Craig' on television, while his many films include Lucky Jim, A Night to Remember, Operation Bullshine, The Flesh and the Fiends, Victim, Cleopatra and Jason and the Argonauts.

Cairney gained a PhD from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, and was much in demand internationally as a lecturer, writer and consultant on Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Robert Burns.

Cairney wrote books on many famous Scots as well as other books on football (particularly Celtic F.C.), theatre and his native Glasgow, where he lived with his New Zealand-born wife, actress and scriptwriter Alannah O'Sullivan.

Cairney was married to actress and playwright Alannah O'Sullivan from 1980. He was the brother of footballer Jim Cairney. They were raised in the Parkhead area of Glasgow; the referee Tiny Wharton was a childhood acquaintance. At his death, he was survived by his wife, Alannah, and five children from his first marriage, to Sheila Cowan.