Rossa McPhillips remembers iconic action hero Lewis Collins, a schoolboy favourite who would have made a great James Bond and who we are sure remains very dear to the hearts of Infinity readers of a certain age...

 

20th June 1977. Martin Shaw strode up to his co-star, Lewis Collins, on the set of The Professionals. “I said to Lew ‘Look, you probably know, I didn’t want you to do this,” Shaw said. “I told him I was not in favour of it and absolutely fought against it.” It was an ominous start for a role that would define Lewis Collins throughout his whole career.

The Professionals was modelled on the success of hit US show Starsky and Hutch and was series creator Brian Clemens’ attempt to provide a more realistic follow-up to his other brainchild, The New Avengers. Clemens similarly planned to have split leads and originally cast Martin Shaw and Anthony Andrews as the crime-fighting officers of CI5 (Criminal Intelligence Department 5).

However, Clemens discovered that Andrews lacked personal on-screen chemistry with Shaw. He immediately thought of Collins as an alternative after shooting an episode of The New Avengers (‘Obsession’) in which both Collins and Shaw appeared. There had been a noticeable dynamic tension between the pair both on and off camera and Clemens wanted to recreate that for his new series. When Collins was cast as William Bodie, Shaw was livid.

“I think that Martin resented Anthony Andrews going, because Anthony was an actor of some note and Martin could relate to him, “ Clemens explained in 1996. “When we brought in Lewis, who really hadn’t been acting that long and had been the drummer in the Mojos and so on, I think Martin didn’t have respect for him initially. He didn’t think he was much of an actor.”

The love was not lost with Collins either. “Martin and I respect each other but basically we are not the same type of people,” he told an interviewer in 1979. “Our relationship is very much as it is portrayed in the series. Both of us are honest enough to admit it. There is rivalry between us, we spur each other on. Sometimes we feel aggressive towards each other and the whole cast feel it.”