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Martin Shaw has revealed the secret feud he had with his ‘arrogant’ late co-star Lewis Collins.
The pair are famously known as British TV’s most popular crime-fighters of the 1980s, Bodie and Doyle.
Martin, 80, and Lewis, who looked as though were best pals onscreen in The Professionals, couldn’t stand each other in real life.
So much so that Martin admitted he was ‘relieved’ when he stopped working with his co-star after the series ended.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Martin spoke of the hidden feud he had with the late actor, who died in 2013 after a five-year battle with cancer.
He said: ‘It was truly, truly horrible and there was a sense of blessed relief when it was over. Ten years after the show finished I met Lewis and everything was healed between us.’
Martin Shaw, 80, has revealed the secret feud he had with his ‘arrogant’ late co-star Lewis Collins (pictured this year in A Man For All Seasons)
Martin and Lewis, who looked as though were best pals onscreen in The Professionals, couldn’t stand each other in real life (pictured together in The Professionals in 1979)
Martin said their feud first began when he and Lewis played villains in The New Avengers in 1977.
‘Lewis behaved so badly on that set. He had a small part but he was so arrogant. It was beyond that. It was bizarre’, Martin said.
Martin recalled how Lewis would ‘boast about his physical prowess at the expense of the other actors’.
He added: ‘I’d already said to the casting director, “I can’t work with Lewis because we don’t get on”, but they cast him anyway.
‘I went up to him on the first day of shooting and said: “You know I didn’t want you to do this but let’s get on with it and have fun”. And he told me to f*** off and he never forgave me for the next four years.’
Doyle was the sensitive one with a bubble-perm and a conscience.
The real hardman of the show was saturnine Bodie, the ex-mercenary.
Bodie and Doyle were the paramilitary wing of MI5, a maverick unit called CI5 run by George Cowley, played by war movie veteran Gordon Jackson.
So much so that Martin admitted he was ‘relieved’ when he stopped working with his co-star after the series ended
The pair are famously known as British TV’s most popular crime-fighters of the 1980s, Bodie and Doyle (pictured with Gordon Jackson centre)
It was his Glaswegian growl that warned of ‘anarchy’ and ‘acts of terror’, and set the uncompromising tone for the show.
Earlier this year, Martin starred in Robert Bolt’s perennial war-horse A Man For All Seasons (his first was in 2006).
It tells the story of Catholic saint Thomas More’s stand against Henry VIII, or more precisely, Henry’s determination to defy the Pope, appoint himself head of the Church in England, ditch Catherine of Aragon and have a go at siring a son by another woman (Anne Boleyn).
Martin admitted that his job contributed to his hair turning grey, in an interview with The Guardian in 2012.
He said: ‘I’ve grown a few grey hairs – well, a lot of grey hairs by now. And there’s been a great deal of fatigue,’
‘Acting does put a strain on relationships. You’re away from home a lot. In that sense, it’s almost military.’
