Ross Davidson

William Russell "Ross" Davidson (25 August 1949 – 16 October 2006) was a Scottish actor best known for his role as Andy O'Brien in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Career Davidson started his working life as a physical education teacher in Scotland in the early 1970s. He also played water polo at international level for Scotland. He left teaching to run a pub and disco in Glasgow, but furthered his ambitions to act by attending night classes. He made his screen acting debut on television in A Degree of Uncertainty (1979), a BBC Play for Today set in a Scottish university, then appeared as a kilted dancer in Stanley Baxter on Television (1979). He also had small parts as a member of a mime troupe in The Comedy of Errors ("BBC Television Shakespeare", 1983) and a photographer in Widows II (1985), as well as appearing in the film The Pirates of Penzance (1983) and the Monty Python short The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983), made to accompany the group's feature The Meaning of Life. In Spain, the Netherlands and Germany he was seen in commercials for products ranging from chewing gum to beer. In 1985 he became one of the original cast of the BBC's flagship soap opera EastEnders. He played the altruistic nurse Andy O'Brien for 18 months, after which his screen alter-ego went down in history for being the first main character to be killed off, dying in a road accident in August 1986.