ONE of Scotland’s most successful movie stars has been reminiscing on his days as a young sub-editor with the DC Thomson & Co Ltd publishing empire in Dundee.
Alan Cumming, who now lives in New York, is featured in a two-page spread in the company’s house journal, Argus.
At 16, having done his Higher exams, but too young for university or drama school, he joined DC Thomson’s fiction department, subsequently moving to Tops, a new pop and TV magazine, with Harry Watson as editor.
Cumming much enjoyed his period at Meadowside although acting was always his preferred career choice.
He admits that for a long time he hadn’t any contact with colleagues from his DCT days… “but last year at an airport, I ran into Jackie Brown, at that time editor of Shout. She and I started in the fiction department together and were both lowly sub-editors on Tops. Look at her now”.
On the best piece of advice he received in his journalistic days, Alan recalls: “When you take the mock-up of the magazine along that long, scary corridor to the office of the Big Boss, only speak when you’re spoken to, and get out as quickly as possible.”
