James Hazeldine

Actor best known for his part as 'Bayleaf' in 'London's Burning'

James Hazeldine, actor and director: born Salford, Lancashire 4 April 1947; married 1971 Rebecca Moore (one son, one daughter); died London 18 December 2002.

The veteran firefighter Mike Wilson, nicknamed "Bayleaf", in the long-running television drama series London's Burning, was known both for giving a sympathetic ear to colleagues and playing practical jokes on them. James Hazeldine played the popular fireman, manager of the Blue Watch mess, for almost 10 years, quickly winning a loyal following from viewers, who watched anxiously as Bayleaf was buried alive in a warehouse fire. The character survived and Hazeldine went on to direct some episodes of ITV's top-rating programme.

He had previously starred in the espionage thriller series The Omega Factor (1979) as Tom Crane, a journalist with psychic powers who investigates the paranormal for MI5 after his wife's death at the hands of a psychic.

Although Hazeldine became a familiar face to viewers, he never became a household name. For his most recent television appearance, last July, he grew a moustache to play Detective Inspector Stan Egerton in Shipman (2002), based on the true story of Britain's worst serial killer, Dr Harold Shipman, the GP from Hyde, Cheshire, who was convicted of murdering 15 of his elderly patients and is believed to have killed hundreds more. Egerton's dogged determination to nail Shipman, against opposition from local people, was the centrepiece of the drama.

Born in Salford, Lancashire, in 1947, Hazeldine was obsessed with film as a boy and said,

By the age of 11 I'd watched A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and East of Eden, and I realised the unifying factor was the director. So 30 years before it was fashionable, I wanted to direct. Elia Kazan became my hero.

He left school aged 15 following the death of his mother, and wrote to repertory companies asking for work until "finally my local one took me on as a student assistant stage manager for £1 a week. Slave labour, basically." Hazeldine made his London début at the Royal Court Theatre, where he appeared in plays such as Edward Bond's Narrow Road to the Deep North (1969), Peter Gill's Over Gardens Out (1969) and Arnold Wesker's The Old Ones (1972).

He later performed in seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Troilus in Troilus and Cressida, Innocent in Love-Girl and the Innocent, Alcibiades in Timon of Athens and John Clare in The Fool. He was directed by Peter Gill at the National Theatre in Kick for Touch, Small Change (both written by the director) and Catherine Hayes's Long Time Gone, and played Sam Evans, alongside Glenda Jackson, in Strange Interlude, both in the West End (1984) and on Broadway (1985).

After acting in television plays such as Kisses at Fifty (Play for Today, 1972), Hazeldine took the roles of Frank Barraclough in the 1930s Yorkshire mining village saga Sam (1973-75), Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger (1976), Malcolm in the BBC's Macbeth (1983), David Gore, the father whose son is haunted by a scout from another planet, in the ITV children's drama Chocky (adapted from the John Wyndham novel, 1984) and Lawrence Redding in Murder at the Vicarage (1986), one of the Miss Marple dramas featuring Joan Hickson as Agatha Christie's busybody spinster sleuth.

He also starred in two sitcoms, playing Bernie, a widowed cabbie and father-of-two who enjoys a new relationship with a literary agent and former childhood friend (Amanda Redman), in Streets Apart (1988-89), and Frank, the boss of an electronics firm taking on five youth trainees, in Young, Gifted and Broke (1989), created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran.

The role of Bayleaf in the Jack Rosenthal television play London's Burning (1986), about the lives of firefighters, on and off duty, from Bluewatch B25 Blackwall, led to an ITV series, with Hazeldine recreating his role for the first eight years (1988-95). Although married to a fire "widow", Claire (Valerie Holliman), Bayleaf was seen in the first run having a one-night stand with another firefighter, Josie Ingham (Katharine Rogers).

He eventually quit the fire service after suffering nightmares over a concrete manhole cover that narrowly missed him in an explosion. As a payback for his practical jokes, colleagues had the last laugh on his departure: he slid down the firepole and landed in a sea of foam bubbles. Hazeldine made one guest appearance in the 1996 series of London's Burning and directed some episodes, a talent he also took to The Knock (1996) and Heartbeat (1996).

He then acted Mr Weston in Andrew Davies's television adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Emma (1997) and Ivan Braithwaite, Pandora's father, in Adrian Mole: the cappuccino years (2001), as well as landing guest roles in series such as The Vice (2000) and Dalziel and Pascoe (2000).

His occasional film appearances included parts in Nicholas and Alexandra (as the young Stalin, 1971), The National Health (1973), Stardust (1974), The Medusa Touch (1978), Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982) and Business as Usual (1987).

On stage, he returned to the West End (Almeida Theatre and Old Vic Theatre, 1998) and Broadway (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 1999) to play the saloon owner Harry Hope, alongside Kevin Spacey, in Howard Davies's production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. "Hazeldine's Harry Hope is perfection," wrote a New York Times critic.

He had appeared as Sigmund Freud in a preview of Christopher Hampton's The Talking Cure at the National Theatre earlier this month.

Anthony Hayward