Obituary: Iain Blair, writer and actor

Emma Blair wrote many very successful romantic novels but the name was a pseudonym. In fact, Emma was Iain Blair and as his widow Jane Blanchard said: "Emma was not the quiet, retiring type but a 6ft 3in Glaswegian called Iain Blair who enjoyed a pint and a smoke."

In a wide-ranging career, Blair was an acknowledged actor seen in many gritty TV series and a Sydney lifeguard before becoming a best-selling author. He wrote 30 books - many based in Scotland - and his last one, Arrows of Desire, which came out in 2007, was a story of love, despair and retribution centred on his native Glasgow during the Second World War and in Canada. His books sold worldwide and were among the most borrowed from public libraries.

Blair was raised in Glasgow but his father died soon after his birth, followed by his mother when he was 11. He then moved to the United States and attended school there. In the Sixties, he returned to Glasgow, via his trip to Australia, and pursued a successful career as an actor. He spent 20 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and also appeared in such television dramas as The Borderers, The Sweeney, The Brontes of Haworth, Rock Follies, The Saint, Citizen Smith and Juliet Bravo.

Blair had much fun making an educational video, playing "the oil man" who conned Del Boy (David Jason) in a deal. Blair was seen at the end being driven away in a large car puffing a monster cigar.

During those 20 years on stage, Blair began writing in his spare time - mostly plays for theatre and television. Then he branched out into writing books - initially, thrillers but within a few years (and with an immediate success) romantic novels. When he submitted his first romance, Where No Man Cries, to his publishers in 1982, they suggested it would sell better if the author was a woman. So Iain was changed to Emma. He joked: "The publishers decided on a sex change and so that was that. Emma I became and Emma I stayed."

The book, which was set in Glasgow between the wars, in which the hero overcomes social and financial hardships to eventually find the woman he loves, sold very well. Many of his books were of that genre: strongly romantic but very realistic. Blair had a fine ability to reflect social conditions within the body of his writing while the romantic element provides the main thrust to the story. He was a fine wordsmith and an exceptional story-teller

As he indeed demonstrated in two of his most acclaimed books. Flower of Scotland was about a family of whisky distillers in Perthshire as the First World War is about to break out. The family face many problems and as the war ends, they return to Scotland much changed.Blair related those social pressures with much sensitivity.

Similarly, in Scarlet Ribbons, Blair captures with a beguiling honesty the trials of a girl born with a degenerative hip disorder who rises to become a pilot. Blair follows her courageous career with a stark and realistic energy and ends the book on a high note when the heroine finds happiness.

Blair spent at least six months of each year writing. The rest of his time was spent on meticulous research and enjoying life in the small Devon village to which he had become so attached. Some of the locals regarded his alter ego, Emma, with wry amusement. In fact, Blair was able to maintain a delightful anonymity for many years. No-one, apart from his publishers, knew who Emma Blair was, but then "she" won a literary prize and Blair decided to "come out". His wife said: "In virtually every interview afterwards, Iain was asked whether he wrote his books while wearing women's clothes - the answer, a very resounding and Glaswegian 'no'."

Blair was a robust and burly man who delighted in providing pen portraits when asked what kind of person Emma was. He replied: "Probably about late 40s, a bit of a tough cookie and had a certain amount of personal tragedy, which is why she writes with such passion."

His hard early life certainly provided Blair with a keen insight into social conditions in Scotland and family relationships - which he then depicted with a rare authority.

Blair, who was forced to stop writing four years ago after he was diagnosed with diabetes, had two sons from his first marriage and is survived by his novelist and TV producer wife.