Catherine Cookson The Gambling Man Cast

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That's about as affectionate as Victoria Chapman gets about her husband in The Cinder Path, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is perfectly cast in the role of this sly, seductive, cat-like beauty. Perhaps the most femme fatale-like character in all of Cookson, Victoria is bad news for any man who meets her - most of all poor Charlie MacFell, who soon. Feb 26, 1995 With Robson Green, Ian Cullen, Bernard Hill, Sammy Johnson. A rent collector in Victorian Tyneside tries to better himself. He finds navigating class prejudices and family obstacles difficult.

Catherine Cookson The Gambling Man Cast Members
Catherine Cookson The Gambling Man Cast List
The Gambling Man Movie
Norman Stone

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South Shields-born Catherine Cookson's books and the films they were made into have captured the hearts of millions of people over the years.

Dame Catherine Cookson's work helped to put the North East firmly on the map.

Her fiction was set in the region and millions of copies were sold around the world.

Then when the books were made into films, North East locations were used, taking the region's locations into people's living rooms.

The man responsible for bringing the Cooksons to the screen was Ray Marshall with his company Festival Films and Television.

Long-running franchise

Between 1989 and 2001, he produced 18 mini-series of Dame Catherine's work.

He said: 'It was about 12 or 13 years so it was the major thing that I have done in my career by a mile.

'It was really what established my company firmly as a big drama producer. It was incredibly important as was my relationship with Catherine Cookson.'

Ray started off the franchise with The Fifteen Streets in 1989 and the last one was A Dinner of Herbs in 2001.

He said it was important to set the films in the North East as the books were.

North East locations

Among the locations used in the films were Alnwick Castle, Belsay Hall, Marsden Grotto and the Cheviot hills.

In The Moth, Eshott Hall, in Northumberland, was chosen as the location for a major fire scene.

Tow Law moor, in County Durham, was used to recreate an action scene from World War I for The Cinder Path.

A mine was recreated in a factory near Gateshead in Tilly Trotter and in The Glass Virgin, Newcastle's Hanover Street was transformed into a 1850s street.

Ray said: 'I think the North East became very much part of my life for a while. I sort of felt a bit like an honorary Tynesider just for having spent so much time there.

'Her work was very much grounded in the North East.'

He said he thought the films had played a key role in bringing the North East to a wider audience in the 80s and 90s.

Another characteristic of the films was their ability to cast young actors who went on to enjoy successful careers alongside more established names.

Among those who starred in the Cooksons were Sean Bean, Catherine Zeta Jones, Robson Green and Emilia Fox.

Ray said: 'I think the casting in the Cooksons was so crucial to its success.'

Enduring interest

He said it is difficult to pick out a favourite from the films, although The Fifteen Streets has a special place in his heart because it was the first one.

Ray said he would love to make another Cookson film but it would all be dependent on getting the funding into place. The next one he would like to bring to the screen is Katie Mulholland.

He also said he wasn't surprised at the enduring interest in her work.

'I think she had a massive fanbase when she was alive. I think that fanbase hasn't really gone away,' he said.

last updated: 11/06/2008 at 11:08
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Catherine Cookson The Gambling Man Cast Members

Fans of True Blood may well bolt up on the sofa when they catch sight of a young Stephen Moyer in The Secret. He plays Marcel Birkstead, who may not be a vampire, but more than makes up for that in other kinds of nastiness.

An emotionally stunted control freak who's either being cloyingly clingy or throwing violent tantrums, he's one of Catherine Cookson's most pitiful villains, and a million miles away from True Blood's Bill Compton.

Rory Connor, aka The Gambling Man, is a rogue with a heart of gold and a twinkle in his eye. So you can see why Robson Green was the ideal casting for this particular Cookson hero.

Yes, he may be a rent collector, but he's the type who gives poor families every chance to pay up, and smiles warmly at the little tykes who yell at him to go away when he turns up at the doorstep. It's just too bad that his gambling addiction gets him into so much bother...

So young and chiselled that his cheekbones can conceivably be used to cut stone, Sean Bean isn't actually the main character in The Fifteen Streets. Instead, he's Dominic O'Brien, the ne'er do well brother of the heroic John, and spends a lot of his time scowling at things and shouting 'Where's me tea?' He also drinks a lot, gets into scraps, and generally rubs everyone up the wrong way. Still, he is Sean Bean, which makes him utterly magnetic to watch no matter how brutish and troublesome his character gets.

A tousle-haired Nigel Havers plays up his bad side in The Glass Virgin, and he's clearly having a lot of fun while doing so. As glassworks manager Edmund LaGrange, he's a petty tyrant who likes to stride around barking orders at his wife, terrorizing the staff, and frolicking with random women in his secret chamber of carnal delights. He's also fond of waving his stick angrily at people. Who knew Nigel Havers could play such a flamboyant villain?

She's more or less a national treasure these days, but Jane Horrocks was an unknown when cast as the fiercely determined Christine Bracken.

Her talent shines through in this small but intense role, which sees her playing a Christian mystic who comes up against Catholic prejudice - and a very lusty Sean Bean - in The Fifteen Streets.

Catherine Cookson The Gambling Man Cast List

Brendan Coyle may have become an unlikely heartthrob as the buttoned-up Bates in Downton Abbey, but there's nothing unlikely about his romantic appeal in The Glass Virgin.

The Gambling Man Movie

Here we see the young Coyle in full-on hunky hero mode as the dashing Manuel Mendoza. A sturdy, salt-of-the-earth chap, we see him save a girl's life, punch a bad guy to the ground and become the sworn protector of a traumatised runaway - and that's only in the first half of the story.

We're used to seeing Emilia Fox in various strong and gutsy roles on screen. But in The Round Tower, the young Emilia stars as a woman trapped in the unenlightened 1950s, where she falls pregnant to the wrong man and marries someone just to save her social reputation.

Norman Stone

Beautiful and fragile, she is completely right in the role of Vanessa Ratcliffe, who's swept along by the currents of her time. Look out as well for Coupling's Ben Miles as her upwardly-mobile husband.