Twelfth actor tackles Saint role

Press, 27 October 1989, Page 11

Twelfth actor tackles Saint role

By JERRY BUCK NZPA-AP Hollywood Six television movies about The Saint are about to hit the screens in America, including one set in Australia. The role of the dashing, debonair hero, Simon Templar, has been taken over by Simon Dutton, the twelfth actor to appear in the role.

All the new stories are original. Others were filmed on location in the United States, England, France, Germany and Luxembourg. Author Leslie Charteris was sceptical when Dutton told him his mother had named him for the famous Robin Hood of modem crime.

Charteris, who wrote the best-selling Saint novels, asked Dutton whether he actually had been named for the character or if he’d made it up “for the newspapers,” the actor said. “When I assured him my mother was a fan he invited her to his eightyfirst birthday party in London.”

The Saint that Charteris created is a swashbuckler of dubious morality but dedicated : to justice. Roger MoOre, who played him on TV from 1967 to 1969, is perhaps the bestremembered of those who have tackled the role. Dutton’s version is part of a syndicated American series, “Mystery Wheel of Adventure.”