The 6ft 2in Scottish actor John Stahl, who has died aged 68 of a brain tumour, was best known for two television roles. He went from playing a gentle giant toiling on a farm in his home country’s scenic highlands in Take the High Road to portraying the head of a noble house, complete with long white hair and thick grey beard, in Game of Thrones, the fantasy drama that became a worldwide hit.
In the Scottish soap – eventually retitled High Road – he was the shy, good-natured crofter Tom Kerr, known to all in the fictional village of Glendarroch, on the banks of Loch Lomond, as Inverdarroch, after his farm. The character was unlucky in love, never plucking up the courage to propose to Lily Taylor (played by Thelma Rogers), a widow, then experiencing a failed marriage to Claire Millar (Julie Miller), the district nurse.
When she had an affair with the villainous Davie Sneddon (Derek Lord), factor of the Glendarroch estate, Inverdarroch picked up his shotgun and headed for a showdown. Eventually, he broke the gun and slowly poured a glass from the whisky bottle that Sneddon had pushed towards him, before leaving without another word.
Stahl joined Take the High Road in 1982, two years after it began as a daytime soap across the ITV network – although screened at peak time by Scottish Television, which produced it – and he stayed on and off until it ended in 2003.
In later years, he movingly portrayed Inverdarroch being diagnosed with – and surviving – breast cancer, at that time seen by many males as a stigma. He fully embraced the storyline, which triggered letters from men, or their partners, who had endured the trauma themselves and were grateful that the publicity was bringing it to a wider audience.
High Road was seen in countries as far afield as Sri Lanka, Turkey, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia, but Stahl reached even more viewers worldwide when he was cast in Game of Thrones as Rickard Karstark, the Lord of Karhold and head of House Karstark.
In the story, based on George RR Martin’s books, it was one of nine noble families fighting for control over the seven kingdoms of the mythical continent of Westeros and the Iron Throne. In the programme’s first series (2011) the character was played by Steve Blount for an episode.
Having already been turned down for two roles in Game of Thrones, Ser Rodrik Cassel and Jeor Mormont, Stahl was reticent about auditioning again when the part was being recast. His agent encouraged him and, on discovering that Rickard was to have a Yorkshire accent, he intriguingly tried to recreate that of Fred Feast, the Scarborough-born actor who had played the Rovers Return pot-man Fred Gee in Coronation Street decades earlier.
Over two series (2012-13), as the Houses of Karstark and Stark, one-time allies, became sworn enemies, Stahl’s character saw his son Torrhen killed and ended up being executed.
Between the two runs, Stahl was appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which caused continuity problems. “When I did the first series, my beard was down to my chest and my hair was down to my shoulders,” he explained, “so they had to make a wig and beard for me to match up.”
The actor was born John Steele in Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, to Nan (Annie, nee Johnstone), a former shop assistant, and Alec (Alexander) Steele, a coppersmith in a local distillery. His love of acting began in school productions at Alloa academy, and he performed in works by Shakespeare and Harold Pinter at a local youth theatre. Then he trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, in Glasgow. On graduating, he became an actor and assistant director at Darlington drama centre (1975-76), and as there was another John Steele he took the stage name of Stahl from an actor he admired.
He made his television debut in the Scottish soap Garnock Way, as PC Scoular, the local bobby in a mining community (1976-79). Some ITV regions outside Scotland screened the serial.
On stage, Stahl not only performed at Cumbernauld theatre, Lanarkshire, but also directed productions there and was responsible for introducing a children’s summer holiday pantomime in 1982. For many years, his own panto roles included Widow Twankey and one of the Ugly Sisters.
His stage presence began to shine through and, in 2001, he moved to London. He had several stints with the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon between 2004 and 2013, renewing his association with its artistic director, Michael Boyd, having previously worked with him at the Tron theatre in Glasgow.
In 2011, he brought wry humour to his part as a poor Shetland crofter making money by grave-robbing, alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, in a National theatre company production of Frankenstein directed by Danny Boyle.
A year earlier, he had made his home back in Scotland with Jane Paton, his partner since 2000, and they built their own house on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides. He said they had been at drama school together but he was too shy to ask her out then. Last year, they became Scotland’s first opposite-sex civil partners.
Stahl married Doreen Cunningham in 1982. They divorced but remained friends. Jane and his mother survive him.
John Stahl (John Macdonald Steele), actor, born 23 June 1953; died 2 March 2022
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