Nowadays, his most famous character is the patriarchal head of a family with millions of pounds in loose change.
But life was very different for Brian Cox when he was given a £10 note to help send him from secondary school to Succession.
As the fourth and final season of the Emmy-winning drama kicks off, Cox’s journey to becoming cantankerous media mogul Logan Roy can all be traced back to the train fare he received from Dundee impresario and comedian Ronnie Coburn.
Ronnie drove him to the station
Cox’s love of theatre was encouraged at St Michael’s Junior Secondary School and he stepped on to the Dundee Rep stage for the first time aged 15 in 1961.
The X-Files’ Cigarette Smoking Man William B Davis was artistic director at Dundee Rep and he gradually gave Cox larger and larger acting roles.
Cox was having a staple lunch of bridie and chips at Wilson’s on Reform Street when fire burned down the Rep’s home at the Forester’s Hall building in June 1963.
Cox spent a period working for Coburn at the city’s Palace Theatre.
The pair became firm friends and it was to him that Cox turned when London and drama school called to study acting and he needed to find the £10 train fare.
Coburn handed over a tenner.
He even gave Cox a lift to Dundee station to catch his train south!
The rest is history.
He went on to become an accomplished Shakespearean actor, spending seasons with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Cox enjoyed theatre and film successes in America too, starring as the original Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter in 1986.
Cox never forgot the debt of gratitude that proved to be the first step on that long road to international success and he duly reimbursed his former mentor in April 2006.
Cox was guest speaker at a special business lunch to celebrate Tartan Day at the Apex Hotel and met up with Coburn who recalled their time working together at the Palace.
Coburn said: “I had the lease of the Palace Theatre and used to run all sorts of daft wee shows to keep it going.
“Brian lived up at Tullideph at the time and I gave him a job in the box office.
“One day he told me he’d got the chance to go to a big acting school in London but didn’t have any money to go, and asked if he could have a tenner.
“I gave him it, we gathered his stuff and I took him down to the station.
“I forgot all about it until years later when my wife and I were watching a television show.
“It was King Henry VIII and he was getting stuck into great big legs of pork and joints of meat.
“I thought ‘I know that face’ and I realised it was Brian.
“I said to my wife – King Henry VIII owes me a tenner!”
Cox never forgot his friend’s generosity
Despite arriving late for the event – his luggage had been lost on the flight from New York and he had to buy a suit for the function – Cox made an impassioned speech praising Dundonians for their integrity and urging city leaders to ensure that they now made the correct planning decisions for the future.
He said: “Edinburgh is close to my heart but this city has overcome so many obstacles and it has always come out stronger.
“That is because of the people of Dundee.
“Cities like Belfast should look to Dundee as an example because of the way Protestants and Catholics have got on and this is because of their shared city experience.
“The thing that matters in Dundee is the people – it doesn’t really matter about buildings, it matters about the people and it is them that make me proud to be a Dundonian.”
During his speech, he said that in the 1960s he became disappointed at the concrete buildings being put up around the city saying at the time he believed there was a conspiracy “to turn Dundee into Europe’s biggest car park”.
However, he said that as he grew older he enjoyed returning to the city more and more and Dundee was now learning from previous errors.
Cox also briefly touched on his years growing up in Dundee – a time, he said, when “fruit wasn’t something you ate, it was something you stole” – and his time working at the Rep and at the Palace alongside Coburn who later became known throughout the world for his Breath of Scotland touring shows.
Always a larger than life character, Coburn named his family home in Elliot Road Vaudevilla and Cox was among those who paid tribute when he died in 2010.
Coburn had been battling cancer for some time and Lord Provost John Letford summed it up best when he said the “lights of the city had gone out” when the news broke.
Cox became a huge star in Hollywood
His great friend by then had moved to the US permanently to pursue movies which led to a number of high-profile roles in Hollywood blockbusters including a well-loved performance in Troy playing Agamemnon and roles in the X Men and Bourne series.
Cox of course is now best known for his role as the head of the Roy gang in Succession which was a late career highlight for which he won a Golden Globe in 2020.
Succession brought Cox home in June 2019 after the makers decided his character should come from Dundee with scenes being shot at Dundee University and the V&A.
The final series will mark the end of the Waystar Royco saga although Cox has no plans to retire any time soon despite finishing the role that made him a bonafide superstar.
That means the journey that started 60 years ago with Cox holding that £10 note at Tay Bridge Railway Station will certainly have a few more twists and turns to come.
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