Edward Woodward has enjoyed a long and varied career since he first became a professional performer in 1946. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he has acted in England, Scotland, Australia, and the United States, and on both London and Broadway stages, appearing in a wide range of productions from Shakespeare to musicals. Despite being known for dra­matic roles, he can also sing and has made more than a dozen musical recordings. In recent years, his distinctive, authoritative voice has narrated a number of audio books.

     Although he has played supporting roles in such prestigious films as Becket (1964) and Young Winston (1972). Woodward is best known for two hit television series. Callan in Britain and The Equalizer in the United States. Despite the fact that the series were made more than a decade apart. Woodward played essentially the same character in each-a world-weary spy with a conscience.

     Woodward’s definitive screen persona of an honorable gentleman struggling to maintain his own personal morality in an amoral, even corrupt, world was prefigured in two motion pictures in which the actor starred. The Wicker Man (1974) and Breaker Morant (1980). In The Wicker Man Woodward played a priggish Scottish policeman investigating a child’s disap­pearance; he stumbles upon an island of modern-day pagans led by Christopher Lee. In Breaker Morant Woodward starred as the title character. a British Army officer well respected by his men, who is arrested with two other soldiers for war crimes and tried in a kangaroo court during the Boer War. In both cases, Wood­ward’s character’s life is sacrificed, a victim of larger hostile social and political forces he is too decent to understand or control.

     Callan, an hour-long espionage series that ran in Britain on Thames Television from 1967 to 1973. starred Woodward as David Callan. an agent who car­ries a license to kill, working for a special secret section of British Intelligence. The section's purpose is "getting rid or dangerous or undesirable people through bribery, blackmail, frame-ups, or, in the last resort, death. Described in one episode as "a dead shot with the cold nerve to kill," Callan is the section’s best operative, and indeed, killing seems to be his main occupation. The character pays a high moral and emotional price for his expertise-he is brooding, solitary, and friendless except for a grubby petty thief named Lonely (Russell Hunter), and his only hobby is collecting toy soldiers. Callan also has two personal weaknesses: he is rebellious and he cares. Although he always does what his bosses tell him, he inevitably argues with or defies them, particularly as he becomes concerned or involved with those whose paths he crosses during the course of his assignments. Despite its bleak subject matter, Callan was a hit in Britain. It spawned both a theatrical film (Callan, 1974) and later a television special (Wet Joh, 1981), in which loyal viewers learned of Callan’s ultimate fate.

     On  one  Callan  episode, "Where  Else Could  I Go?,” a psychiatrist working for British Intelligence says that Callan  is "brave, aggressive, and can  be quite ruthless when he believes in the justice of his cause,” This description could also be applied to Robert McCall, the lead character of The Equalizer, which ran in the United States on CBS from 1985 to 1989. McCall was a retired espionage agent who had been working for an American agency (probably the Central Intelligence Agency). After forcing the agency to let him go, he decides to use his professional skills to aid helpless people beset by human predators in the urban jungle. usually free of charge. His ad running in the New York classifieds reads. "Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer." Although McCalls clients come from all walks of life, they share one thing in common: they all have problems that conventional legal authorities, such as the courts and the police, cannot handle. McCall has an ambivalent relationship with his ex­ superior, Control (Robert Lansing), but often borrows agency personnel (Mickey Kostmayer, played by Keith Szarabajka, was a frequent supporting player) to assist in the" problem solving."

     In a time of rising crime rates, The Equalizer was a potent paranoiac fantasy. made more so because Woodward as McCall cut a formidable figure. He seemed the soul of decency, always polite and impeccably dressed, but one could also detect determination in his steely-eyed gaze and danger in his rueful laugh. To many critics familiar with Callan, McCall seemed to be just an older, grayer version of the same character. However, there were significant differences. Like Callan, McCall suffered from a crisis of conscience, but unlike the earlier character, McCall found a way to expiate his sins. Whereas Callan was the instrument and even the victim of his superiors, McCall was the master of his fate.

     A year after The Equalizer's run, Woodward starred in another detective drama, Over My Dead Body. An attempt by producer William Link to create a male version of his successful Murder, She Wrote, the show paired Woodward as a cranky crime novelist with a young reporter-turned-amateur-sleuth, played by Jes­sica Lundy. However, there was a lack of chemistry between the stars, and the series lasted barely a season.

     In 1994 Woodward returned to England to lend his authoritative voice and presence to a real-life crime series called In Suspicious Circumstances, a sort of British version of the American show Unsolved Mysteries. That same year, he also starred in a British series that explored working-class themes, the comedy-drama Common as Muck. The lead role was rather uncharacteristic for Woodward-that of a "bin­ man" (trash collector) from the "up-North" town of Hepworth. By 1995, however, Woodward was back in a role better suited to his on-screen persona. In two TV movies filmed in Toronto, The Shamrock Conspiracy and Harrison: Cry of the City, Woodward played Edward Harrison, a retired Scotland Yard inspector who is as cynical and world-weary, but also as tenacious and deeply moral, as Robert McCall. In 1998 Woodward was recruited to play Harry Malone, the gruff "controller" of a team of operatives combating crime and terror around the world in Cl5: The New Professionals. This updated version of the British cult series The Professionals was aired in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, but it neither pleased fans of the original nor found a new audience and ended after 13 episodes. Still, Woodward continued to play the role of spy boss when he joined the USA Network cable series La Femme Nikita in  its fifth and final season, as the Head of Center, the real "Mr. Jones." Woodward also guest-starred on Baby­lon5: Crusade, another short-lived series, on which his son, Peter, was a cast regular.

Woodward has also appeared in several other television movies both in Britain and the United States. His roles have been offbeat, to say the least, including most notably Merlin in Arthur the King, a strange version of the Camelot legend told by way of Lewis Car­ roll; the Ghost of Christmas Present in the very fine 1984 production of A Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott as Scrooge; and as the Lilliputian Drunlo in the award-winning 1996 version of Gulliver's Travels.