The actor Gary Olsen, who has died of cancer aged 43, was best known for his sharply contrasting roles in two popular television series. For ITV, he played PC Dave Litten, the hard-as-nails, streetwise copper in the The Bill; on BBC2, he was plumber husband Ben Porter in the domestic comedy, 2.4 Children.

But although 2.4 Children, written by Andrew Marshall, was intelligent entertainment, it never entered the league of Are You Being Served or Open All Hours in populist terms, and did nothing decisive for Olsen's career. In it, the character Ben, and his wife Bill, played by Belinda Lang, formed an apparently normal family, dependent on Ben's skills as a plumber and Bill's forays into the bakery and airline catering businesses.

The sometimes surreal mishaps that beset them - they were constantly hindered by Ben's scatty assistant Christine (Kim Benson) - all registered on Olsen's large, good-natured face, with its square chin always on the point of a wobble.

A useful stage and television performer - and a bundle of energy - Olsen never achieved the conspicuous role in a cult TV series or stage production that might have made him a nationally celebrated figure. His appearance in the title role of Macbeth, at the Liverpool Everyman in 1995, was praised, but it was in the provinces. Last year, he was in what was certainly a cult stage play, Art, playing the part of Ivan, which Kenneth Stott had first played in the West End production. But the management's policy of changing the cast every few months did not help the public to remember him.

The irony of his untimely death is that Olsen himself had grown restive at the rate of his own progress, and was on the point of doing something about it. Thinking that he had never received the attention he deserved in Britain, he decided last Christmas to make a new life in Australia, where his wife Jane was born (and where his two children are being educated).

Olsen's life had certainly had more than its fair share of hardships. His mother died when he was only nine and his father when he was 11, and he was brought up by an uncle and aunt. After leaving Archbishop Tenison grammar school, in Kennington, south London, he went in search of theatrical work, changing his name from Grant to Olsen and seeking an agent. Lou Coulson took him on as one of her first clients, impressed by his humour and energy - he was, he said, "a man with such an expansive personality and with such drive". Olsen stayed with Coulson for 20 years, and parted from her only when his restlessness and dissatisfaction made him feel that changes were due in his life.

Nearly six feet in height, Olsen was impressively burly. At 16, he joined the young people's theatre scheme at the Royal Court, designed to attract a new generation into the art, both as players and as audiences. His acting debut was with a small London group called Incubus, and he went on to appear with the critically acclaimed Lumiere and Son company.

Olsen toured extensively in the theatre until, in 1976, he dropped out of acting to join punk bands. He had seen the Sex Pistols perform ing in Holland and became a self-described "singing revolutionary", performing agit-prop at night and delivering school meals by day. He kept up this duel way of life for two years until a casting director, looking for a group of youthful punks to feature in a Stephen Friers film for television, spotted him. As Olsen at the time affected pink leopard-skin trousers, a black beret, dark glasses and brothel-creeper shoes, his return to acting was assured.

As an actor, he was certainly versatile and trusted with many types of film part, from Tweedledum, in the television version of Alice Through The Looking Glass (1999), and Arthur Hoyle, in Up 'N' Under (19998), to Spangier in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover (1989).

On the stage, he was equally versatile, yet never quite - except in Macbeth - playing the sort of dominant lead part in memorable plays that would have enhanced his reputation. He appeared in Metamorphosis in 1986, Alan Bleasdale's Up On The Roof in 1987, Serious Money from 1987 to 1988, On The Ledge, at the Royal National Theatre in 1993, and April In Paris in 1995, but, though mostly well received, these were not plays in which an actor could establish a popular reputation.

The television parts were steady and lucrative, and his role in The Bill was perhaps seminal in his later performance as Macbeth. His PC Litten was an interesting break in a series that was otherwise pitched halfway between the police as goodie-goodies, ala Dixon Of Dock Green, and The Sweeney, in which the boys in blue were as nasty as the criminals only on the right side.

Olsen is survived by his wife, whom he married in 1991, his son Jake, and his daughter, India Rose.

Gary Olsen, actor, born November 3 1957; died September 13 2000