Michael Elder

Michael Aiken Elder (born April 30, 1931 in London ; died July 28, 2004 in Edinburgh ) was a British actor and science fiction writer.

Life

Elder was the son of Howard Hugh Elder, a Scottish doctor, and Marjorie Eileen, née Adams. He studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , where he graduated in 1951. In 1953 he married the actress Sheila Mary Donald, with whom he had two sons (1955 and 1958).

He was not a famous but a busy actor who appeared on the Scottish repertory stages, notably at the Citizens Theater in Glasgow and later at the Gateway Theater in Edinburgh , and appeared in over 1000 radio shows and numerous British television films and series. He is best known for the role of Dr. Alexander Wallace in the television soap Take the High Road , where he was also the script editor for 98 episodes and wrote the script for 15 episodes. He also wrote four novel versions of the series.

In 1950 he had published his first novel, The Affair at Invergarroch . The first science fiction novel, Paradise Is Not Enough , appeared 20 years later. Another 14 SF novels followed by 1978, including the Barclay series, a series of five space opera novels: Nowhere on Earth (1972), The Perfumed Planet (1973), Down to Earth (1973), The Seeds of Frenzy (1974) and The Island of the Dead (1975). The majority of the SF novels were published by Hale Science Fiction and John Clute describes Elder's novels as "curmudgeonly but amiable" and attests them a quality that clearly exceeds the level of the other Hale novels.

The novel The Stranger Earth , which is about an extraterrestrial astronaut stranded on prehistoric earth, is published in German.

bibliography

Novels

• The Affair at Invergarroch (1950)
• The Phantom in the Wings (1957)
• Paradise Is Not Enough (1970)
• The Alien Earth (1971)
  • German: The foreign earth. Goldmann's Space Paperback # 0142, 1972, ISBN 3-442-23142-6 .
• Nowhere on Earth (1972)
• The Everlasting Man (1972)
• Down to Earth (1973)
• The Perfumed Planet (1973, also as Flight to Terror )
• A Different World (1974)
• The Seeds of Frenzy (1974)
• Centaurian Quest (1975)
• The Island of the Dead (1975)
• Double Time (1976)
• Mind Slip (1976)
• Oil Seeker (1977)
• Mindquest (1978)
• Oil-Planet (1978)

High Road mounts

• Danger in the Glen (1984)
• Mist on the moorland (1985)
• The Man from France (1986)
• The Last of the Lairds (1987)

Non-fiction

• 10 Years of Take the High Road (1990)

Filmography

• 1954: Knock (TV movie)
• 1956: The Glen Is Mine (TV movie)
• 1956: Henrietta, MD (TV movie)
• 1959: The Highlander (TV movie)
• 1962: The Master of Ballantrae (TV series)
• 1963: Suspense (TV series)
• 1964: Madame Bovary (TV series)
• 1966: This Man Craig (TV series)
• 1967: The Revenue Men (TV series)
• 1963–1970: Dr. Finlay's Casebook (TV series)
• 1971: The View from Daniel Pike (TV series)
• 1972: The Scobie Man (TV series)
• 1972: Adam Smith (TV series)
• 1973: Come Away In (short film)
• 1973: Weir of Hermiston (TV series)
• 1973: Crown Court (TV series)
• 1973: Sam (TV series)
• 1974: The Vital Spark (TV series)
• 1974: The Camerons
• 1975: Edward the King (TV series)
• 1975: Sutherland's Law (TV series)
• 1975: Five Red Herrings (miniseries)
• 1976: Garnock Way (TV series)
• 1976: The Flight of the Heron (TV series)
• 1977: The Mackinnons (TV series)
• 1978: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (TV series)
• 1978: The Standard (TV series)
• 1980: Airport Chaplain (TV series)
• 1980: Between the Covers (TV movie)
• 1980: Play for Today (TV series)
• 1980: Square Mile of Murder (TV series)
• 1983: Scorpio (miniseries)
• 1983: The Mad Death (miniseries)
• 1984: Murder Not Proven? (TV series)
• 1987–1993: Take the High Road (TV series)
• 1996–1997: Taggart (TV series)
• 2001: Rebus (TV series)
• 2002: Monarch of the Glen (TV series)
• 2004: The Last Noel (short film)

literature

• Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 141.
• John Clute : Elder, Michael. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition), version dated April 4, 2017.
• Robert Reginald : Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. A Checklist, 1700–1974 with contemporary science fiction authors II. Gale, Detroit 1979, ISBN 0-8103-1051-1 , p. 889.

Web links

• Michael Elder in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Michael Elder in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Works by and about Michael Elder at Open Library
• Michael Elder in Fantastic Fiction (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Clute: Michael Elder. Prolific science-fiction writer and 'Take the High Road' actor . Obituary in: The Independent . August 15, 2004, accessed January 14, 2018.