"Shoot straight, you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!"

Edward Woodward, a British actor with a long résumé in television and theater who was best known in the United States as the star of “The Equalizer,” a dramatic series about an ex-spy turned righteous vigilante in New York City, died on Monday in Truro, Cornwall, England. He was 79 and lived in London and Cornwall.


The cause was pneumonia, said Janet Glass, Mr. Woodward’s agent for more than 30 years. Mr. Woodward had heart problems and other ailments, she said.

Mr. Woodward’s career began in 1946, when he first appeared onstage, and lasted for more than half a century. He was a versatile actor with an accomplished tenor singing voice who played a number of Shakespearean roles on the English stage; starred in the Broadway musical “High Spirits,” which was based on the Nöel Coward play “Blithe Spirit” and directed by Coward himself; recorded several albums as a singer and reciter of poetry; and played leading roles in films as various as the occult thriller “The Wicker Man” (1973) and the historical courtroom drama from Australia “Breaker Morant” (1980).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/arts/television/17woodward.html?_r=1
 
 
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