When David McCallum passed away in September 2023, media widely reported the news and the world knew we lost a star. What I didn’t know until a few months ago was another loss related to McCallum down the memory lane of TV entertainment – German actor Ekkehardt Belle.
Unlike McCallum’s international stardom, Belle had a more limited exposure. But since we love our childhood heroes as bigger than life, both McCallum and Belle are inseparable parts of my childhood memory of the TV show Kidnapped, which was based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel of the same name from the late 19th Century.
The TV show, a French-German production, is from 1978, but in my part of the world it was aired on local TV in the late ‘80s. Belle played the protagonist – 17-year-old David Balfour – who lives in Scotland and, after the death of his parents, travels to sub-urban Edinburg to his uncle’s house. As David is sold into slavery by deception, Scottish rebel Alan Breck Stewart – a Jacobite – rescues him from the ship carrying captives to America. Thus starts the David-Alan alliance that lasts throughout the story.
In my world, it’s impossible to think of either McCallum or Belle without thinking of the other. So imagine the gift of David-Alan camaraderie shared by someone I don’t know at all. The video of a montage from Kidnapped was found by pure serendipity on BitChute shortly after I learnt about Belle’s death – which happened in January 2022, well over a year and a half before McCallum passed.
In the after world and the life beyond, this video pretty much presents the essence of the David-Alan camaraderie against the show’s theme as background music. It’s shared here with the hope that it will stay on the site forever.
Note: I do not understand German but if you do and wanted to go an extra mile for the David-Alan bond, share the best line from this video in English in the comments section.
