Kenneth MacDonald

Kenneth MacDonald (20 November 1950 – 6 August 2001) was an English actor who was best known for the parts of Gunner Nobby Clark in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Mike Fisher in Only Fools and Horses. Personal life MacDonald was born in Manchester, the son of Scottish heavyweight wrestling champion Bill MacDonald, who died of kidney failure at the age of 43 when Kenneth was 13. He attended Xaverian College preparatory school in Fallowfield, Manchester, St Anthony's preparatory school in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, and went on to St 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. Ken left school at eighteen to help support his mother Emily. He took a job at a Kellogg's cornflakes factory. During night shifts he would perform Hamlet and other Shakespeare plays that he had learned at school, earning the nickname "Hamlet". MacDonald met his wife Sheila while he was appearing in panto in Crewe in 1976. She was the costume designer at the time. They had two children: William (born 1986) and Charlotte (born 1989). Acting career MacDonald's first television role was Benny in Softly, Softly in 1972. In 1975, he made a guest appearance in series 2, episode 1, of Last of the Summer Wine. Forked Lightning. He played a mechanic. A year later he moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre. He appeared in a 1977 episode of Dad's Army. MacDonald featured regularly in the BBC sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum, running from 3 January 1974 to 3 September 1981. It was set in the jungles of Burma and India during the Second World War and MacDonald played the character Gunner "Nobby" Clark, a member of a Royal Artillery Concert Party.