Derren Nesbitt (born Derren Michael Horwitz; 19 June 1935) is a British actor. Nesbitt's film career began in the late 1950s, and he appeared in many popular British television series throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He is perhaps best known for his role as Major von Hapen in the 1968 film Where Eagles Dare.

Acting career

Nesbitt's television appearances began in the 1950s, playing numerous different roles in series such as The Adventures of Sir Lancelot and The Adventures of William Tell; he was often billed as Derry Nesbitt at this stage of his career. He went on to play the villain in some of the most popular series of the 60s and 70s, including Danger Man, The Saint, Doctor Who, The Prisoner, Gideon's Way, Man in a Suitcase, UFO and The Persuaders!. In 1969 he took on the role of DCI Jordan in the police drama Special Branch.

Nesbitt has also appeared in film roles such as a predatory blackmailer of gay men in Victim (1961), a murderous pimp in The Informers (1963), a slimy assassin in Nobody Runs Forever, and the suspicious Gestapo officer in Where Eagles Dare (1968). Nesbitt was keen to be as authentic as possible with his character in Where Eagles Dare. Whilst on location, he requested to meet a former member of the Gestapo to better understand how to play the character and to get the military regalia correct. He was injured on set whilst filming the scene in which his character is killed. The blood squib attached to Nesbitt exploded with such force that he was temporarily blinded, though he made a quick recovery.^[2][3] He also had leading roles in classic early sixties 'B' Movies The Man in the Back Seat and Strongroom, both directed by Vernon Sewell.

In 2018, Nesbitt played the leading role, as a drag queen, in a British independent film, Tucked.

Personal life

Nesbitt has been married four times and has five children.^[4]

In 1961, he married his first wife, the actress Anne Aubrey; the couple had a daughter the next year. On 25 January 1973, he was fined £250 when he pleaded guilty to two charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in October the previous year. He attacked her with a leather strap after she told him that she was having an affair with another man. He also bruised her by grabbing her clothing the next day when she refused to tell him details about her lover. She divorced him a few months later.^[5][6][7][8]

His third wife was an Australian beauty queen, and for a time he moved to her country where he taught theatre studies at the Northern Rivers Conservatorium of Arts in the New South Wales city of Lismore. By 2014, he was living in Worthing, West Sussex, with his fourth wife, Miranda.^[4]

Filmography

Film

Television