John Gordon Sinclair (born Gordon John Sinclair; 4 February 1962) is a Scottish actor. He is best known for playing Gregory in the film Gregory's Girl (1981). In 2019, Sinclair played Drew Cubbin in the BBC drama Traces.
Life and career
Sinclair was born on 4 February 1962 in Glasgow and started work as an apprentice electrician. There was a Gordon Sinclair already registered with the Equity trade union, so he took John Gordon Sinclair as his professional name.
At 15, he joined Glasgow's Youth Theatre after he visited one night and met Robert Buchanan, a fellow fan of Canadian progressive rock group Rush. As a result, he starred in a number of films by director Bill Forsyth, perhaps the most notable of which is 1981's Gregory's Girl, shot when he was 19 years old. He reprised the role nearly two decades later in Gregory's Two Girls (1999), and also appeared in Forsyth's Local Hero (1983). His other film roles included appearances in Britannia Hospital (1982), The Girl in the Picture (1985), and Erik the Viking (1989).
He has continued to act on stage and screen. Other roles include parts in Goodbye Mr Steadman, Mad About Alice (2004), and Roman Road (2004). He was also in the first series of LWT's Hot Metal (1986) and both the radio and television sitcom An Actor's Life For Me (1989–1993). He played Dan Weir in Espedair Street (1998), the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of the Iain Banks novel, as well as playing the lead part of Dr Finlay in the Radio 4 series entitled Adventures of a Black Bag (2001–02). In 2019, he appeared as Drew Cubbin, Emma's father and ex-partner of Marie Monroe in the TV series Traces.
Novelist
His novel Seventy Times Seven, a violent thriller set in 1992, was published in 2012.
This was followed by Blood Whispers in 2014 and Walk in Silence in 2017.
Personal life
In 2004, he married Shauna McKeon. They have two daughters.