Colin Roy Salmon was born in December 1961 in Bethnal Green, London, England, the son of Sylvia Ivy Brudenell Salmon, a nurse.[1][2][3] He is of Jamaican descent.[4] He grew up in Luton and attended Ashcroft High School.[5]
On leaving school, Salmon became the drummer in the punk rock band the Friction, which he formed along with three friends from high school.[6] The band released a 7-inch EP, a live cassette, a cassette-EP and performed regularly around Luton in 1979 and 1980.[6] Salmon briefly worked with another band, the Tee Vees,[6] and was also a singer and trumpeter in Luton-based band Catch in the mid-1980s.[7] He plays trumpet and has his own jazz quartet, playing at venues such as the Dorchester Grill Room and at events such as the Cheltenham Jazz Festival.[8]
Speaking about his quartet to Pete Lewis of the magazine Blues & Soul, in an interview prior to their performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May 2008, Salmon stated:
In terms of recording, we've done none. We've mostly just done very occasional performances – usually at very special events. You know, keeping a consistent band going is a bit like getting the Aston Martin out the garage – you have to run it every now and then! And what's made that particularly difficult in the last year, for example, is that I've literally just spent an entire 12 months travelling the world acting – from China through to Montreal to Botswana. But, having said that, with the children being older I do have more time when I am at home these days. So we have been able to do some rehearsing together. And, while we've always mostly performed standards, I have actually for the first time written some new stuff in time for this upcoming Cheltenham gig.[8]
In 2006 he appeared in the eighth series of the ITV drama Bad Girls as Senior Medical Officer Dr. Rowan Dunlop. He played Dr. Moon in two episodes ("Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead") of the fourth series of the long running science fiction television series Doctor Who.[10] (Subsequently, there were rumours that he would take on the coveted lead role of The Doctor in 2008 after David Tennant, but the role went to Matt Smith.)[11] In 2020, writer Steven Moffat stated he envisioned Salmon's character as a future incarnation of the Doctor.[12]
Salmon has also recorded the role of Kerr Avon in the audio series of Blake's 7.[13] Salmon played James "One" Shade in the film Resident Evil (2002)[9] and reprised the role as a clone version in the 2012 sequel Resident Evil: Retribution.[9] Salmon also played Oonu, squad leader of the Skybax in the 2002 mini-series Dinotopia. His other film credits include Captives (1994), Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask[14] (a documentary directed by Isaac Julien in which Salmon plays the French psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary, Frantz Fanon) (1996), The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998), Fanny and Elvis (1999) and My Kingdom (2001).
In 2007, Salmon appeared in the season finale of the ITV2 series Secret Diary of a Call Girl, playing a client of the protagonist, a call girl named Hannah Baxter. In the 2008 film Clubbed, a film about nightclub bouncers in Coventry in the 1980s, Salmon plays one of the main characters, Louis. In 2009, Salmon appeared in the UK version of the popular American drama Law & Order, as barrister Doug Greer in the episodes "Buried" and "Community Service". In 2012, Salmon appeared in Death in Paradise, as killer/businessman Leon Hamilton/Vincent Carter. He starred in the thriller filmExam, directed by Stuart Hazeldine.[15]
Salmon is a patron of the African-Caribbean Leukaemia Trust and the Richard House Children's Hospice and an ambassador for The Prince's Trust.[17] He is also the chairman of governors at St Anne's Nursery.[18] He is involved in the Notting Hill Carnival and is the dance captain of the Fox Carnival Band.[19]
Salmon married visual artist Fiona Hawthorne[20] in 1988 and the couple have four children.[21][22]
In September 2010, Salmon was invited by his friend Samuel L. Jackson to Switzerland for Shooting Stars Benefits 2010 Golf Tournaments.[23] The golf competition raised money for the Samuel L. Jackson Foundation and the Swiss Red Cross to go towards a new hospital in Takéo Province, one of Cambodia's poorest provinces. In 2009 he became a co-founder of Cage Cricket with Trevor McArdle.[24]
In an August 2021 interview, Salmon spoke about how becoming ill with COVID-19 had affected him and his family, praising doctors for having saved his life.[25][26]
^ abcOgg, Alex (2006), "Friction", in No More Heroes: A Complete History of UK Punk from 1976 to 1980, Cherry Red Books, ISBN978-1-901447-65-1, pp. 254–255.
^Riet, Richard van't (30 December 2023), Episode #16.8, Pointless Celebrities, Alexander Armstrong, Richard Osman, Chizzy Akudolu, retrieved 17 April 2024{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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