Background
He was born in Manchester, England, the son of Scottish heavyweight wrestling champion Bill MacDonald, who died of kidney failure at the age of 43, when Kenneth was 13. Ken left school at eighteen to help support his mother Emily.
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Kenneth MacDonald
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended Street Anthony"s preparatory school in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, and went on to Street Bernardine"s Franciscan College in Buckingham, where he took part in school productions, notably The Business of Good Government, in which he played Herod, and Arsenic and Old Lace.
Career
In 1975 he appeared in Last of the Summer Wine, and then a year later he moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre. His first television role was Benny in Softly, Softly in 1972. Macdonald featured regularly in the British Broadcasting Corporation sitcom lieutenant Ain"t Half Hot Mum, running from 3 January 1974 to 3 September 1981.
When he landed the part of public landlord Mike in the Only Fools and Horses episode "Who"s a Pretty Boy?" in 1983, it was initially assumed to be a one-episode role.
However, the character made regular appearances until Christmas 1996, when the show seemingly ended. MacDonald had also appeared in the Granada Television Rentals television adverts of the late 1970s and made a cameo appearance in one episode of Goodnight Sweetheart, starring his Only Fools and Horses co-star Nicholas Lyndhurst, with MacDonald playing Mr Jones.
He also appeared in an episode of The Thin Blue Lincolnshire as a club owner. In 1996 he played DI McCluskey in Crocodile Shoes II alongside Jimmy Nail.
In 1992, MacDonald had a brief appearance on the Channel 4 soap Brookside as the racist owner of the petrol station, George Webb.
His last role was as Stephen Pearce in The Last Detective, which was aired just after his death, later in 2001. His character Mike was not killed off in Only Fools and Horses, which was revived for three episodes in 2001, in which he is said to be serving five years in prison for embezzling the brewery (to which mike pleaded guilty to all charges).
Membership
lieutenant was set in the jungles of Burma and India during World World War II and MacDonald played the character Gunner "Nobby" Clark, a member of a Royal Artillery Concert Party.
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Born
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Died
August 6, 2001 (aged 50) -
Nationality
United Kingdom