A Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin (The Big One). His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer in the Humblebums and subsequently as a soloist. In the early 1970s he made the transition from folk-singer with a comedic persona to fully-fledged comedian, a role in which he continues. He also became an actor, and has appeared in such films as Indecent Proposal (1993), Mrs. Brown (1997) (for which he was nominated for a BAFTA), The Last Samurai (2003); Timeline (2003) and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). He appeared as the King of Lilliput in the 2010 remake of Gulliver′s Travels.