Background
His mother, Agnes, née Kennedy, worked in the cotton mills.
His mother, Agnes, née Kennedy, worked in the cotton mills.
He attended Street Mary"s Roman Catholic school in Failsworth, Oldham and studied design at the Manchester School of Artist
Tierney"s father, Ernest, was a boilermaker and trained draughtsman, from Warrington, who worked at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. While working as a textile designer and printmaker, he became involved in amateur dramatics at the Little Theatre, in Bolton, which had been set up by John Wardle, father of the drama critic Irving Wardle, whose wife, Norma, became a mentor to Tierney. As a result, he began a scholarship with the Rose Bruford drama school, in Sidcup, Kent, in 1958 and landed his first acting job in 1962.
His roles included the part of Tommy McArdle in Brookside between 1983 and 1987, Charlie Gimbert in Lovejoy (26 Episodes 1986 and 1993), Geoffrey Ellsworth-Smythe in A Bit of a Do, Patrick Woolton in House of Cards and Chief Const.
Raymond in Dalziel and Pascoe. In science fiction, he appeared in Star Wars in 1977 and the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord in 1986.
He also appeared in Braveheart as the English sheriff who executes the wife of William Wallace, and is then subsequently executed by Wallace. He appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974-1975 and 2005.
In 2007 he played Doctor Hugo Eckener in the docudrama Hindenburg: The Untold Story, which was about the crash of the airship Hindenburg and the investigation after lieutenant
This was aired for the 70th anniversary of the disaster. In 2008 he played Captain Smith of the Rated Maximum Sinusoidal Titanic in the docudrama Titanic: The Unsinkable Ship. Malcolm Tierney died of pulmonary fibrosis, at the age of 75.
Vanessa Redgrave wrote in his obituary of a "loving man" and a "brilliant actor".