Michael Elphick

Michael John Elphick was an English film and television actor. He played the eponymous private investigator in the ITV series Boon and Harry Slater in BBC's EastEnders. He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1983 film Gorky Park.

With his gruff Sussex accent and lip-curling sneer, he often played menacing hard men. Elphick struggled with an addiction to alcohol; at the height of his problem, he admitted to consuming two litres of spirits a day, which contributed to his death from a heart attack in 2002.