Farewell Simon MacCorkindale 1952-2010

Best known as

Simon joined the cast of Casualty in 2002 as Dr Harry Harper, the hospital’s popular clinical lead consultant. He left the show in 2008.

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Harry’s Sacked!

The doctor is given his marching orders by hospital bosses…

There are tears all round this week when A&E stalwart Harry Harper bids farewell to his colleagues. After deciding to leak Ruth’s diary to the press, the senior consultant is forced to leave the ward.

‘Harry believes that Ruth’s diary highlights the pressure doctors are under,’ says Simon MacCorkindale, who’s played the doc for six years. ‘But he put his career on the line and he knows he has to go.’ After an emotional goodbye, he visits his old pal Charlie at a private clinic and asks him to return to Holby.

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Doctor On The Move

After six years as consultant Harry Harper, Simon MacCorkindale tells us why he’s after a new challenge

Simon MacCorkindale is very happy with the storyline that sees him leave his role Casualty this week.

There are all kinds of unpleasant ways I could have left,’ he says. ‘I could have been murdered by an ungrateful patient, for instance! So I’m delighted to be leaving with Harry’s dignity intact, via the moral high ground! And I’m glad to be leaving on a story that might make people think.’

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Harry’s Last Hurrah

The consultant hangs up his stethoscope…

Holby A&E manager Harry Harper bids farewell to the hospital this week – but the top doctor doesn’t leave his post willingly! Harry put his job on the line recently by choosing to leak the emotional diary of suicidal trainee medic Ruth Winters to the press, and now he must face the consequences…

“Harry feels very strongly that junior doctors are being put under too much pressure,” explains Simon MacCorkindale, who plays the department head. “He thinks Ruth should be used as an example of what can happen when they’re pushed too far, and wants to make everyone aware of the issue. His superiors aren’t happy with his actions, though, and force him to resign.”

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Farewell Harry

Having handed Ruth’s diary to the press, Harry prepares to hang up his stethoscope

This week, as Ruth lies in a coma, the truth behind the juniors doctor’s suicide attempt is all over the papers. By leaking her diary, Harry has plunged Holby City into the media spotlight, forfeiting his future as a senior consultant.

‘Harry feels it’s in the best interest of all young doctors for Ruth’s diary to be printed,’ says actor Simon MacCorkindale. ‘It’ll make the public and the NHS fully aware of all the pressure.’

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Simon MacCorkindale

The Casualty star on his TV times in pictures

1977 – Simon in his ITV drama Romance. ‘In a way it was my breakthrough performance,’he recalls. ‘lt was shown to the director of Death on the Nile [1978] and I got the role of Simon Doyle in it.’

1984 – With the late, Oscar-winning actress JayneWyman in hit US soap opera Falcon Crest. ‘She was a fantastic woman. We stayed in touch for many years.’

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Spin Doctor

Harry is elected Holby’s new MP – but we haven’t seen the last of actor Simon MacCorkindale on the hospital wards. . .

Ever since we heard that Simon MacCorkindale was planning to quit his role as Casualty’s Harry Harper, the Inside Soap team has be distraught. How on earth would the emergency department ever be able to cope without him? And who else could offer the patients such a charming bedside manner? Luckily, when we put these questions to the man himself, it didn’t take him long to quell our worries. . .

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Goodbye, Si

There’s bad news for fans of hospital drama Casualty – it looks like Simon MacCorkindale, who plays Harry Harper, could soon be leaving the show. The star recently admitted that he’s considering quitting his role to pursue his cherished dream of big-screen success.

“There comes a point when you feel you’ve done enough,” reveals the 54-year-old. “And I’ve always felt that the best part of my career would be at the latter end. I want to go on as an actor and move up to the next level.”

Maybe Baby

Casualty’s Harry Harper is in for a big shock this week when he finds out his ex-girlfriend Ellen is pregnant. Actor Simon MacCorkindale talks to David Hollingsworth

Q: Harry dumped Ellen last week. Why did he do that?
A: ‘The split was down to the pressure on him by senior staff members. They felt that the relationship was inappropriate because of him being in such a higher position to her. He just feels as though the relationship compromises both of them and it therefore should have no future.

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No Child Of Mine

Ellen Shocks Harry when she tells him she’s pregnant

Harry Harper’s walking around the A&E department with the weight of the world on his shoulders at the moment.

Not only is the consultant facing battles with corporate manager Nathan Spencer about how the casualty department should be run, but he’s also fed up with being the subject of hospital gossip after everyone found out about his brief affair with nurse Ellen Zitek.

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Loose Lips – The Stars . . . In Their Own Words

“I feel my time as as actor and leading man is now”

At the grand old age of 53, Simon is more content than ever with his impressive acting career.

“They put us up against Dallas on a Friday night. It was suicide!”

One of Simon’s most bizarre roles was as a professor with the power to turn into animals. Sadly, Manimal was axed after three months in 1983!

“The farm provides us with two contrasting lifestyles – it’s restful after a hectic day”

The actor and his wife, Susan, Live on a large farm in Exmoor, Devon where they breed Georgian Arabian horses.

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One Final Question

For an actor who’s survived more deaths than most, the original Mr Manimal remains optimistic

There’s a Casualty/Holby City special this Saturday. What is it?

It’s an organ donation episode. It’s the end of the BBC’s organ donor week, and we’ve combined with Holby to do a story that is organ-donor driven but has some reality TV elements to it.

What, as in people will vote out the organ they don’t like?

No. We’ve already created the drama part but the programme’s going to be bookended by Professor Robert Winston who makes an appeal in order to promote the notion of donation, which is also being pronounced as Do-Nation – as in the nation should respond by getting on to the organ donation register.

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Manimal Instinct

Simon MacCorkindale might now be more familiar for his role on Casualty, But we decide to remind him of his time when he could turn into any animal he wanted, in his superhero guise of … Manimal!

Possibly the most bizarre of a plethora of superhero action series that Glen Larson launched upon an unsuspecting television audience in the Eighties, Manimal starred Simon MacCorkindale as Dr Jonathan Chase, a tuxedo-clad university professor who helped the police using his unique special power. At the merest hint of trouble, he could turn into any animal he desired. Whether panther, elephant or mouse, a barrage of plastic special effects, throbbing foreheads and elongating fingers signaled his transformation as he stomped or scurried to thwart a dastardly crime. MacCorkindale took to the role with aplomb, a dashing hero with charisma and charm, but alas the combination of his debonair good looks and demented special effects were not enough and the show only lased for eight episodes after its star-studded pilot first aired.

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TV CV

Simon MacCorkindale

Casualty Saturdays BBC1
Name Simon MacCorkindale
Age 50
Education Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, Studio 68 of Theatre Arts, London
Role Call Could easily have been typecast as an urbane hunk, but has achieved a diverse gallery of roles – from classics to soaps – in TV, film and theatre.  Also a writer, director and producer who runs his own production company, Amy International, with his actress wife, Susan George

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Bad day at the office

As Casualty returns for a new series, Harry Harper is going to wish he hadn’t got out of bed.

Thanks to Holby.TV for this article

Consultant Harry Harper is spending what he hopes will be a nice day out at the fair with his kids. But you just know that, this being the first episode in a new series of CASUALTY, disaster is looming.

Sure enough, it’s not long before Harry is dealing with one of the biggest and goriest disasters ever to hit Holby – a crash involving the air ambulance which is called to an emergency at the fair.

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50 Worst Shows Of All Time

15th – Manimal

NBC, September 30, 1983 – December 31, 1983

Thought you saw a puddy-tat? So did everyone else who watched Manimal, an astonishingly silly, unintentionally hilarious crime series that starred Simon MacCorkindale as Jonathon Chase a scientist who discovered “the secrets that divide man from animal.” Able to transform into the beast of his choosing, Chase helped the NYPD battle bad guys even though he looks like a “Cats” understudy.

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New A&E consultant Harry Harper realises that he is going to be in for a rough ride with headstrong Lara Stone this fortnight. Lara has several run-ins with bullying Detective Inspector David Collier until finally, Harry is forced to reprimand her for her unprofessional manner.

“Harry picks up very quickly that Lara is a little fragile,” reveals Simon MacCorkindale, who plays the new recruit. “He doesn’t question her skills as a doctor but he feels that she can get a little too emotionally involved with the patients.”

While Harry and Lara clash, Simon is happily settling into his new role, where he is set to play the doctor for the foreseeable future.

“Harry’s a great character,” reveals Simon. “He’s a bit of a super doctor. He is also a family man and has five children but he still has an eye for a pretty girl! I like him a lot.”

Simon has a wealth of acting experience including the US soap Falcon Crest and hit films such as Death On The Nile. He admits that it was daunting to join such a close cast but he laughingly explains that some real-life experiences have helped him to adapt to the hospital environment.
“Being an outdoors person, I have spent a lot of time in A&E over the years with various war wounds!”

Simon MacCorkindale, back on television as Casualty’s new consultant, has been delivering foals rather than lines of late…

This site looks like it’s no longer online, so here is the full article.

I was never too comfortable as a young actor and always felt that my best time in the business would be around now – I’m 50 – through to the age of 65 I’ve been doing a lot of production work in the past ten years, as well as writing and directing, so the opportunity to do something very visible – in a great part – was much too good to miss My character in Casualty [new consultant Harry Harper] is a disciplinarian, slightly old-fashioned, but pretty cool I’ve been filming since February and it’s a really nice show to be in – egos are at a minimum.

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SIMON SAYS: I’m at home in Casualty

Smoothy Simon MacCorkindale has had more than his fair share of visits to A&E

Playing the likes of Manimal’s Jonathan Chase and Falcon Crest’s Greg Reardon, actor Simon MacCorkindale has earned himself the reputation as one of TV’s eternal bachelor boys. But it’s as a family man that he’ll be seen from this week, playing Casualty’s new consultant, Harry Harper.

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The new consultant is set to cause quite a stir…

Simon MacCorkindale reckons fate played a big part in him landing the role of CASUALTY’s suave new consultant, Harry Harper.

Thanks to Holby.TV for this article

He’s recently moved to a new home, not far from where CASUALTY is made, and was looking for a local company to make him a mask for his character in the Sky 1 series Relic Hunter.

And it was then that he found himself wandering onto the CASUALTY set in Bristol, to meet the hospital drama’s special effects team.

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Simon Signs Up

Holby is to have a familiar face coming through its doors when actor Simon MacCorkindale joins the cast of Casualty. The former Falcon Crest and Manimal star has appeared in a long list of US productions, and is delighted to be back working in the UK. “I’ve always been a fan of Casualty” he reveals. “It’s great to be joining such an established show with a lovely bunch of people.” Simon will play consultant Harry Harper, and his first episode will be on screen in May.

In the short-lived 1983 series Manimal, college professor Jonathan Chase used his ability to transform into animals to assist law enforcement.

This site looks like it’s no longer online, so here is the full article.

SIMON MACCORKINDALE was the perfect choice to play the wealthy, cultured Chase. “I thought the concept for Manimal was excellent,” says MacCorkindale. “I also appreciated the fact Chase was a very cerebral individual and that Glen Larson [series creator and producer] had decided to make the show very stylish by having my character be an Englishman who wore expensive suits and drove around in a Rolls Royce. All this was quite unusual for television at that time, so we really were exploring new ground.

“Back in the early Eighties the only other English actor on American television was Pierce Brosnan in Remington Steele. Then I got Manimal and a year or two later there was a massive influx of English actors hired for night-time Soap Operas, but Pierce and I started that whole trend. So that, of course, was very much an exciting part of getting the job on Manimal because I knew I had found a foothold in an area that was pretty much virgin territory for Englishmen.

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Manimal, MacCorkindale, a funny animal!

Translated from the original French, so readability is a little strange.  Translated by SMCFP Member Nadeia

Now 45 years old, the ex-Jonathan Chase, Manimal’s hero, would rather have a farm as fallow land than gathering laurels in Hollywood.  However, actor since age 8, he has experienced the difficult art of the Shakespearean repertory. He would still be burning the stage, if the big, and the little screen, hadn’t caught him, attracted by his big blue eyes and his golden wheat coloured hair. “I started in Hollywood in 1980, I earned a lot of money there, but my parts never reached my ambition” he acknowledges. 

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Simon MacCorkindale Half-man Half-animal

Translated from the original French, so readability is a little strange.  Translated by SMCFP Member Nadeia

Actor becoming producer, Simon MacCorkindale has been cultivating his passion for animals in his farm, with his wife for twelve years on his side. At the time, he was filming “Manimal”…

A real gentleman farmer this animal of  MacCorkindale, who settled in a 17th century farm, in the north west of London, lives happy days.

TK7 :  Have you been marked by “Manimal” ?
Surprisingly, yes. I say surprisingly because they keep on talking to me about a TV show filmed in 1983 in three months! Manimal was a very ambitious production, an ecological-zoological project. I have been marked by this show because it gave me the passion for animals.

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MANIMAL 1983

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Picture this: a glossy American series where a hunky British actor fights crime, the twist being that he has a unique way of getting out of trouble – he can turn into any animal he chooses (usually a black panther) by looking constipated. Sound like a winner, doesn’t it? Yes, if you thought we were scraping the barrel with our retrospective on Blue Thunder: The Series in SFX, has Jon Abbott got a treat for you…

Created by Glen A Larson, master of gimmick TV, Manimal was a short- lived blend of fantasy series and crime show – just one of a large number of such shows that came and went in the late ’70s and early ’80s. It starred British actor Simon MacCorkindale, reasonably well known in the UK for assorted TV series (most interestingly as scientist Joe Kapp in the 1979 Quatermass serial), films (such as Death on the Nile and the 1978 adaptation of Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands), and being married to actress Susan George. MacCorkindale’s career, though promising at one point, never really took off, and choices like Manimal ought begin to explain why…

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