Andy Hunter

This is an article about the EastEnders character. For the DJ, see Andy Hunter°.

EastEnders character
Andy Hunter
Portrayed by	Michael Higgs
Created by	Louise Berridge
Duration	2003–05
First appearance	3 July 2003
Last appearance	18 February 2005
Classification	Former; regular
Profile
Date of birth	1970
Date of death	18 February 2005
Occupation	Businessman/gangster
Family Wife Bev Hunter (divorced) Sam Mitchell (2004–05)

Andrew "Andy" Hunter is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Michael Higgs.

Creation and development

Higgs auditioned for the role in April 2003 and won the part of EastEnders' new "bad guy", who made his first appearance in July that year as a member of the gangster organisation known as "The Firm".^[1] Higgs stated that he was happy to play a villain: "They say that the devil has the best tunes, but the main thing is that the character's fully-rounded. With the so-called good guys and bad guys, they're not just good or just bad. There's a dynamic, and that's always the interesting thing to find - where's the weakness? You flesh it out and make them an interesting person."^[1]

In the heirarchy of the Firm, Andy's character was a subordinate to Jack Dalton (Hywel Bennett), but was appointed leader of the organisation for a brief time following Dalton's murder. Higgs described the differences between Andy and Dalton's leadership styles: "He's new blood, but he has a completely different sensibility about how the gang operates. Jack Dalton was quite old school. If you upset him you'd get your knee-caps broken or get killed. I think Andy plays more of a psychological game - information is power for him."^[1]

Discussing Andy's relationship with Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace), Higgs said, "I think you do see a soft side of him with Kat. He's totally in love with her, which makes him very vulnerable. He's been married before, but the marriage didn't work out. You get the sense that there's some hurt there, some pain that's stopped him becoming involved with other women [...] he likes the spirit of her. She's no-nonsense, in-your-face and slightly larger than life. Andy likes that scared of no one approach. Kat reminds Andy of his mum, with her dark hair and feistiness. He likes the fact that she's a family girl - that's what he wants."^[1]

Storylines

Andy was an employee of The Firm, of which he took control after the murder of Jack Dalton by Dennis Rickman. He had been married and divorced to a woman named Bev previously.

He originally had a crush on Kat Slater and even asked her out on a date one day in The Queen Victoria, but she turned him down, and not gently either. However he kept on trying and she did eventually accept his advances; after some weeks he even proposed to her. She accepted the proposal, but things were to turn out for the worse for Andy as Alfie Moon also fancied Kat and on their big day, he gate-crashed their wedding before Kat could say "I do".

Kat left Andy for Alfie thus making Andy and Alfie enemies. However Andy got his revenge as Alfie owed him a large amount of money. Andy blackmailed Kat to have sex with him behind Alfie's back, in order to pay off the money and if she refused, he would have Alfie killed. Alfie produced the money, but not before Andy slept with Kat.

As they were in bed together, Andy secretly filmed the whole thing with a hidden video camera, and gave the tape to Alfie in The Queen Vic where he and Kat lived and worked.

His dream came true as Alfie watched the tape out of curiosity. He was heartbroken at what he saw, and confronted Kat about it, nearly ending their relationship. That was what Andy had also hoped for, but he didn't succeed as Alfie and Kat were still going strong, and Alfie also got his revenge by giving Andy a tape thinking that it was the same tape that Andy sent them. However, as Andy started to watch it, he was taken aback as he discovered it was a different tape of Alfie and Kat's wedding. After that, Andy left them to their relationship but still bullied Alfie from time to time.

Throughout most of the ordeal, Andy had been having a relationship with Sam Mitchell whom he later married, but when Dirty Den and Marcus Christie tricked Sam into selling the pub to Den, and signing her house over to Andy, Andy divorced her, taking Sam for every penny she had and leaving her homeless.

When Den Watts and Zoe Slater were trying to keep Dennis and Sharon apart, Andy found out what Den and Zoe were doing.

In 2004, Paul Trueman grassed Andy to the police for his shady dealings, which would prove to be his undoing as well. Andy took his revenge on Paul by hiring a hitman from The Firm to kill him. Paul was killed in December 2004. Paul's father, Patrick began searching for him and identified his body when it was recovered. Patrick soon discovered that Andy was involved with Paul's death. Andy told Pat that he had hired a hitman to kill Paul and threatened to kill her if she said anything. Patrick told the police that Andy was involved but there was no evidence against him. With nothing he could do, Patrick swore revenge on Andy.

Andy's luck finally ran out when he tried to rip Johnny Allen off to the tune of £750,000 and Johnny pushed him off a motorway footbridge, killing him instantly. The police were informed of Andy's death but decided that it was suicide. He died on the same night that Den Watts was bludgeoned to death by his wife Chrissie with Pauline Fowler's doorstop.

After his death, Sam was asked to attend Andy's will reading. Expecting to get all his assets and money, he callously left her his engagement ring saying, "To my wife, I leave her the engagement ring so she can sell it, get her roots done, and still be the dumbest blonde I had ever known", while leaving much more behind to be donated to a dogs home. He left the house to Pat and gave the bookies to Dennis.

Johnny confessed to his murder to the police in March 2006, along with ordering the murder of Dennis Rickman.

References

External links

• Andy Hunter at BBC Online
• Michael Higgs fansite