Face of Amber Films Brian Hogg dies at 60

Oct 24 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

A MAN who fell into acting to become the face of Amber Films has died at the age of 60, shortly after getting married to his long-time partner.

Brian Hogg was remembered yesterday as an actor who could put others at their ease and who may not have been aware of the extent of his own talents. Brian performed in several notable plays by North East writers at Live Theatre, including Bandits and Operation Elvis, by CP Taylor, and The Long Line by Tom Hadaway.

But his face became more widely known as one of the main characters in a succession of films made by Amber Films, based on Newcastle Quayside.

His craggy features and under-stated style lent realism to In Fading Light, about the fishing industry, Eden Valley, which focused on the working class passion for harness racing, and three films – The Scar, Like Father and Shooting Magpies – set in coalfield communities struggling without the pits.

Yesterday Amber member Ellin Hare said Brian had got married to partner Angie Oxberry last Saturday and died on Monday night.

She said Brian had been ill with cancer for about 18 months. The couple, who lived in Spital Tongues, Newcastle, had a son, Jonjames, who is 16.

Ellin said: “Brian was very closely involved in Amber’s work from about 1984 onwards.

“He was a significant character in virtually every film we made since then, becoming the face of Amber. He was an incredible actor who had this amazing facility to become part of the world that his character was in – to the extent that, when we made the fishing film In Fading Light, he was offered a job on the boats.”

Amber is famous for using actors and non-actors in their films.

Ellin said: “When you ask people who was the actor, they seldom picked Brian out – and that’s not an insult, it’s an accolade. He was so natural.

“Often we would cast a scene with him and a non-actor and you would see the non-actor come on in huge strides.

“Brian would take the work so seriously and be so focused that the non-actor would be swept up in it.”

Dave Clarke, one-time administrator of Live Theatre, recalled his good friend.

The pair of them bought a house together in Heaton and their partners still work together.

Dave said Brian, who was brought up near Brampton, Cumbria, had been an engineering apprentice but suffered an eye injury when a glass toilet roof fell on his head, prompting a change of heart.

He moved to Newcastle and got a job as a waiter in Dean’s Diner, a popular restaurant on Dean Street frequented by actors.

He was offered the job of stage manager with Live Theatre and moved into acting when the American director Teddy Kiendl gave him a non-speaking role as a mentally handicapped boy in a wheelchair in Operation Elvis.

“Brian was a unique kind of character, I’d say,” said Dave.

“He was a lovely man. He used to empathise with other people and they warmed to him very much.

“He wasn’t hugely self-confident and probably had more power as an actor than he ever realised.”

His funeral will take place on Wednesday, with a horse-drawn procession leaving Benwell Lane at 3.30pm bound for the West Road crematorium. Full details on www.amber-online.com