Michael Kitchen played Billy with some finely judged deliberate accent slippage.

"Usually I only play Billy for 32 minutes, and he was absolutely exhausted," Pitino added.

Steen continued to play Billy throughout the two series.

Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode.

Playing Billy in the curtain-raiser was young Charlie Chaplin.

Also in 1990, he played Billy in the film Blind Fury.

That Michael Hayden, who plays Billy, comes across as a boy in a man's part is no doubt intentional.

John Mills also plays Billy in the film.

Kristofferson was 36 when the film was made, playing 21-year-old Billy.

The choice of the actor to play Billy was "absolutely critical" to the film, he said.