Cummings thought his father would kill him
ALAN Cumming has revealed how he once feared he might perish at the hands of his ‘tyrant’ father.
The 57-year-old star, best known for his role as political aide Eli Gold in US drama The Good Wife, tells BBC’s Desert Island Discs: ‘Sometimes I had terror for my life – when you think, “Oh my God, I am going to die here.”’
The actor also reveals how his violent father ‘seemed to take great pleasure in hurting me’ and even at one point insisted he was not Cumming’s father. ‘My dad was very violent to us, very violent. He was out of control,’ he says.
‘He didn’t care what my mum thought or my brother and I. He was very abusive, mentally, emotionally, and very physically to me and my brother.’
Speaking about being ‘constantly on edge’, the Scottish actor says his father Alex, who worked as a forester on a sprawling country estate, was ‘obsessed with my hair’. ‘It would start off sort of like, you know, you need a haircut. It would go from that to him dragging me by the collar outside into a shed, getting sheep shears out of a drawer and just shearing my head. I mean, just insane – he seemed to get great pleasure from hurting me.
‘When I’d go to get my hair cut as an adult, I would vomit.’
Subsequent attempts at a reconciliation failed and, in 2010, Cumming Senior – who was dying of cancer – insisted he was not the star’s father. But the actor, who proved the claims to be false, thinks his father may have believed the story. He says: ‘I eventually had this DNA test because I didn’t believe him. I had then to phone up my dad and tell him and disappoint him that I was his son.’
He recalls that he ended the call by saying to his father: ‘I actually won’t talk to you again, but take care.’