Alan Leonard Hunt (7 February 1942 – 14 March 2007), known as Gareth Hunt, was a British actor best remembered for playing footman Frederick Norton in Upstairs, Downstairs and Mike Gambit in The New Avengers. Early life Alan Leonard Hunt was born in Battersea, London, in 1942. His father was killed in the Second World War when he was two years old, and he was brought up by his mother, Doris, and his stepfather. At the age of 15, he joined the Merchant Navy. After six years, he jumped ship in New Zealand and worked in a car plant for a year before he was caught and served three months in a military prison. Hunt was then deported back to Britain, and while taking a BBC design course he held a variety of jobs, including stagehand, road digger, butcher's assistant and door-to-door salesman. Having had an interest in acting since his early years, he subsequently trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Following that, he did rep across the United Kingdom and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre in the early 1970s. Among the many stage productions he appeared in were Twelfth Night, Oh! What a Lovely War and West Side Story. Television career Hunt began his television career in 1968, playing Private Kitson in one episode of the UK series Frontier. In 1972, he played a policeman in For the Love of Ada, the same year he appeared in A Family at War and The Organisation. In 1974, he had roles in the Doctor Who story Planet of the Spiders and Bless This House, and the following year played Thomas Woolner in The Love School. In 1974, Hunt appeared in the Upstairs, Downstairs episode "Missing Believed Killed" as Trooper Norton, batman to James Bellamy. The character was a minor one; however, his performance led producers John Hawkesworth and Alfred Shaughnessy to ask him to come back as a regular for the fifth series in 1975. Hunt continued playing Frederick Norton, who had by now become the footman, until the eleventh episode of the fifth series, "Alberto". In 1975, he made appearances in The Hanged Man, Softly, Softly and Space: 1999. In 1976, the year after leaving Upstairs, Downstairs, Hunt starred alongside Joanna Lumley and Patrick Macnee in The New Avengers. The show's producers said Hunt was cast because of his part in Upstairs, Downstairs. He