Andy Hunter

Andy Hunter
EastEnders character
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	Gangster Businessman
Family Wife Bev Hunter (1991–2001) Sam Mitchell (2004–05)

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

Storylines

Andy was an employee of The Firm, of which he took control after the murder of Jack Dalton (Hywel Bennett) by Dennis Rickman (Nigel Harman). He had been married and divorced to a woman named Bev previously. He had a crush on Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) and asked her out on a date in The Queen Victoria, but she harshly turned him down. However he keeps trying and she eventually accepted his advances; and after some weeks he fell in love with Kat proposed to her while they were in New York and she accepted his proposal. On their wedding day, Alfie Moon (Shane Richie) ran to the church and said he loves her and Kat left Andy for Alfie thus making Andy and Alfie enemies. However Andy gets his revenge as Alfie owes him a large amount of money. Andy blackmails Kat to have sex with him behind Alfie's back, in order to pay off the money and if she refuses, he would have Alfie killed. Alfie manages to provide the money, but Kat has already slept with Andy. When they were in bed together, Andy secretly films everything with a hidden video camera he set up, and gave the tape to Alfie in The Queen Vic.

Alfie later watches the tape out of curiosity and was heartbroken at what he sees, and confronts Kat about it, nearly ending their relationship. Andy hopes for them to split but he doesn't succeed as Alfie and Kat are still going strong, and Alfie also gets his revenge by giving Andy a tape thinking that it was the same tape that Andy sent them. However, as Andy starts to watch it, he was taken aback as he discovered it was a different tape of Alfie and Kat's wedding. After that, Andy leaves them to their relationship but still bullies Alfie. Throughout most of the ordeal, Andy has been having a relationship with Sam Mitchell (Kim Medcalf) whom he later married, but when Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) and Marcus Christie (Stephen Churchett) tricks Sam into selling the pub to Den, and signing her house over to Andy, Andy leaves her, taking Sam for every penny she had and leaving her homeless.

When Den and Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan) was trying to keep Dennis and Sharon Rickman (Letitia Dean) apart, Andy finds out what Den and Zoe are doing. In 2004, Paul Trueman (Gary Beadle) reproted Andy to the police for his shady dealings, which would prove to be his undoing as well. Andy takes his revenge on Paul by hiring a hitman from The Firm to kill him. Paul was killed in December 2004. Paul's father, Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker) begins searching for him and identifies his body when it was recovered. Patrick soon discovers that Andy was involved with Paul's death. Andy told Pat that he has hired a hitman to kill Paul and threatened to kill her if she said anything. Patrick tells the police that Andy was involved but there was no evidence against him. Patrick later swears revenge against him.

Andy's luck finally runs out when he tries to rip Johnny Allen (Billy Murray) off £750,000 and Johnny pushes him off a motorway footbridge, killing him instantly. The police were informed of Andy's death but decided that it was a suicide. He dies on the same night that Den Watts was bludgeoned to death by his wife Chrissie with Pauline Fowler's (Wendy Richard) doorstop. Sam is asked to attend Andy's will reading. Expecting to get all his assets and money, he callously leaves 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 leaves the house to Pat and gives the bookies to Dennis. Johnny confessed his murder to the police in March 2006, along with ordering the murder of Dennis Rickman.

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 hierarchy 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]

See also

• List of soap opera villains
• List of fictional crime bosses

References

External links

• Andy Hunter at BBC Online
• Michael Higgs fansite