Alan Cassell

Alan Louis Cassell (16 February 1932 – 30 August 2017) was an English Australian actor, on stage, film and television.

Early life Alan Cassell was born in Manchester, England but grew up in Birmingham. Cassell was of a young age when his mother was admitted to the Rubery Lunatic Asylum after she suffered brain damage following a visit to a dentist. accepting the role after the actor originally cast in it, Frank Wilson, suffered a heart attack.

Cassell was one of the actors who worked in Bruce Beresford’s early Australian films after moving to the eastern states to audition for Beresford and Hector Crawford. Cathy's Child, Squizzy Taylor, Breaker Morant, Puberty Blues, The Club, The Honourable Wally Norman and Strange Bedfellows.

After appearing in the short-lived soap opera Taurus Rising as Ben Drysdale and Network Ten's crime drama Special Squad in 1984, Cassell swore off joining any further long-running series following a run of bad luck with several projects. However, he signed up to play the recurring role of George Young in Neighbours, shortly before learning it too had been cancelled, He was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1979 Australian Film Institute Awards.

Personal life and death Cassell was married to wife Rosina and together they emigrated to Perth, Western Australia in 1957 After Cassell's death, Australian film director Bruce Beresford placed an obituary in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in which he described Cassell as "one of the most gifted actors I have had the privilege to work with – and one of the most charming."