In the first of our new series, the MEN takes a look at the lives and careers of Great Mancs, starting with Hollywood star Ian McShane
Ian McShane attends the “From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina” world premiere at Cineworld Leicester Square on May 22, 2025
This week, the Manchester Evening News starts a new series of features on Great Mancs. Famous faces either hailing from Greater Manchester, or adopted Mancs, who have helped put the region on the map.
To kick us off, we’re taking a look at the lad from Davyhulme who did good, Ian McShane. From his life on and off screen to his rise as a Hollywood power player.
With his unmistakable voice, and a velvet-gloved menace and screen presence few can match, he is one of the most sought-after actors working in Hollywood today.
One of the first signs that McShane was destined for great things was a small story that appeared in the Manchester Evening News on July 22, 1960. At just 17, the Stretford Grammar School boy had received a letter from the Royal Society of Dramatic Art (RADA).
He would be moving from his family home in Manchester to study at the renowned London stage school. RADA were not the only ones to see the potential in the young actor.
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“I’ve found a winner this time – a Finney from Stretford,” said Michael Croft, director of the National Youth Theatre, comparing the teenage McShane to the great Albert Finney.
“I found him when I was in Manchester last year auditioning for Julius Caesar. Of all the boys I have seen, his is the one I would back as a star.” Michael Croft knew how to spot talent.
Growing up and famous dad
McShane was born in Blackburn on September 29, 1942. The son of a Scottish-born professional footballer and later Old Trafford Stadium announcer, Harry McShane.
An only child, McShane moved close to Manchester with his mum, Irene, and dad, Harry, in 1951. The move came after Manchester United signed his dad for his prowess on the pitch as a left winger.
Manchester United player Harry McShane, the father of the actor Ian McShane
Back then, the lives of professional footballers – even ones who played for Manchester United – were not so far removed, and the family settled into a semi-detached house on Lostock Road in Davyhulme.
At a young age, he expressed a desire to become a football player like his dad, but lacked the necessary ability to make it professionally. It was on stage as part of Stretford Grammar School’s dramatic society that his talents would subsequently be noticed.
In a 1959 review of the society’s staging of Jean-Paul Sartre’s satirical farce Nekrassov, the Manchester Evening News highlighted 16-year-old McShane’s “Incredibly confident performance as the swindler”.
After school, he left Manchester to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alongside his prodigious fellow aspiring actors Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt. He became great friends with Hurt, and they shared a flat together. McShane was still a student at RADA when he appeared alongside Hurt in his first film, The Wild and the Willing (1962).
Actor Ian McShane smoking a cigarette. October 4, 1962
The film depicted university life, with McShane playing Harry Brown, a working-class lad from the north who wins his way into a red-brick university.
Breaking into film and 1960s pop stardom
It was a performance enough to put the 20-year-old McShane on the map, and more roles on stage, as well as in TV and film, followed. But this was the Swinging Sixties, and the opportunity to explore McShane’s other attributes was just around the corner – his matinee idol good looks and surprisingly decent singing voice.
In 1962, the two songs that McShane sang for his debut film were released as a single. The ‘A’ side is called Harry Brown, and the ‘B’ side title is The Tinker.
His new status as an emerging heartthrob is apparent in an interview he gave to music magazine Pop Weekly on November 10, 1962. Underneath a suitably moody black-and-white shot of the young star was the headline: “Stand back, girls!”
The 1960s saw Ian McShane establish himself as a TV and film heartthrob
The interview read: “This week a man came into my office—and I mean a real hunk of man! He is probably the most amazing man in the whole of pop singing at the moment! He is tall, handsome, he recently played the lead role in that controversial film, The Wild And The Willing”.
Standing at a modest 5ft 7in, McShane couldn’t exactly be described as “tall”, but perhaps this was a trick of his undeniable presence adding a fair few inches to his aura.
Whatever it was, the young actor succeeded in thoroughly charming the interviewer while downplaying his pop singing aspirations, saying “I don’t believe in myself as a pop singer… I’m dead scared!”
McShane added: “But I do believe in myself as an actor. It’s not that I’m big headed, or that I want to upset anyone […] It’s just, well—in the future I don’t want to be labelled as a pop singer/actor or vice versa.”
Pictured: (l-r) Robert Powell as Jesus, Ian McShane as Judas Iscariot
McShane’s status as a brooding pin-up was further established thanks to his role as Heathcliff in the TV series Wuthering Heights (1967), as well as in romantic comedy films such as Sky West And Crooked (1966) and Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970).
Marriage, divorce, and vodka breakfasts
Ian McShane and Suzan Farmer. November 17, 1963
He continued to play major roles in TV and film throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including his portrayal of Judas Iscariot in the TV series Jesus of Nazareth (1977). This role of the complicated ‘bad guy’ would be a niche he would later carve out for himself with incredible success.
This era also saw significant changes in McShane’s life off-screen. He married English actress Suzan Farmer in 1965, with the couple divorcing in 1968.
English actor Ian McShane with his second wife, model Ruth Post at their wedding in 1968
In 1968, he married his second wife, English model Ruth Post. The couple had two children together, Kate and Morgan. However, in 1970, he began a five-year affair with Sylvia Kristel after meeting her on the set of The Fifth Musketeer, which ended his marriage.
Putting an end to his swashbuckling ways, he married American actress Gwen Humble on August 30, 1980. Since then, McShane has given up alcohol and drugs, of which he admitted he had been an avid consumer for much of his early adult life.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2013, McShane recalled his wild partying days of the 1970s, blaming an unhappy marriage and general sense of ‘disenchantment’ despite the opportunities of regular work as an actor.
Ian McShane watching fellow acting hell raiser Oliver Reed aiming his weapon in a scene from the film ‘Sitting Target’, 1972
“I had been playing the good boy too well. Coming to the US, I thought, ‘I’ve been working for 10 years and now I’m going to have a good social life before it’s too late,'” he told the interviewer.
“It was perfect timing: the 1970s! I just thought, ‘I don’t want to discover the fruits and dangers of life when it’s too late. I don’t want to be like Willie Donaldson, doing crack when he’s 65.’ Not that I did crack…”
Ian McShane and wife Gwen Humble Circa 1980s
Perhaps not crack, but McShane admitted to vodka breakfasts and cocaine, vices he would knock on the head shortly after meeting and marrying Gwen Humble.
Hollywood and his charming villain era
And it was in the 1980s that he found his most famous role up to that point, that of the curly mullet-wearing, leather-jacketed antique dealer in the hit BBC comedy drama Lovejoy.
The show ran from 1986 to 1994 and was essential Sunday evening viewing, with McShane given license to display all his mischievous and roguish charm.
Ian McShane, star of the TV series Lovejoy
The show became a catalyst for the now middle-aged actor’s career to take off further, particularly in the US, where he garnered fame for his role as British film director Don Lockwood in the US soap opera Dallas.
For McShane, the 1990s marked an increasing shift from British television to US screen work. His unmistakable baritone, still inflected with a hint of Manchester, was sought after by casting directors and featured in voice work for roles in Babylon 5 and The West Wing.
He played villain Teddy Bass in the British film Sexy Beast, which went on to become a US box office success. His eerily calm and icy portrayal of the crime lord made his sudden flickers of violence even more disturbing.
Ian McShane and his award for ‘Best actor in a leading role – for Drama Series Deadwood’ arrives at the HBO Golden Globe After Party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 16, 2005
His performance in Sexy Beast would set the stage for his career-defining role just a few years later. Between 2004 and 2006, McShane played ruthless saloon and brothel owner Al Swearengen in the smash HBO hit Deadwood. A role for which he secured a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Drama in 2005.
McShane revisited his role of Al Swearengen in Deadwood: The Movie (2019), which takes place in 1889, 13 years after the series ended.
Deadwood marked the beginning of McShane’s blossoming career in Hollywood, regarded as the moment he became a serious American screen actor, rather than just another British import.
Ian McShane and Keanu Reeves attend the world premiere of “Ballerina” in 2025
His portrayal as the violent but charismatic ‘bad guy’ would lead to him landing roles in Hollywood blockbusters, including Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and as the suave, articulate manager of The Continental Hotel, Winston Scott, in the John Wick franchise (2016–2023).
Roles in hit US series’ American Horror Story, Game of Thrones and American Gods have also been added to his impressive acting CV.
Ian McShane and wife Gwen Humble attend the World Premiere of “Ballerina” on June 03, 2025 in Hollywood, California
Now 83 and with three grandchildren, McShane lives in Venice, California, with Gwen Humble, his wife of 45 years. And the scripts continue to come in. This year, he reprised his role of Winston Scott from the John Wick movies in the spin-off movie Ballerina.
Not bad for a lad from Davyhulme.