Gareth Hunt was born in London in 1943. He was the nephew of the actress Martita Hunt. He served with the Merchant Navy for six years, and subsquently had a variety of jobs before training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Following that, Hunt did rep across the United Kingdom and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. Hunt started his television career in 1972, playing a policeman in For the Love of Ada. The same year Hunt appeared in A Family at War and The Organisation. In 1974, he had a role in the Doctor Who story Planet of the Spiders. In 1974, Gareth Hunt appeared in the Upstairs, Downstairs episode Missing Believed Killed as Trooper Norton, James Bellamy's batman. The character was a minor one, however, his performance led John Hawkesworth and Alfred Shaughnessy to ask him to come back as a regular for the fifth series in 1975. Hunt continued playing Norton, who had by now become the footman, until the eleventh episode of the fifth series, Alberto. In 1974, Hunt also appeared in Bless This House and Doctor Who and the following year made appearances in The Hanged Man, Softly, Softly and Space: 1999. In 1976, the year after leaving Upstairs Downstairs, Gareth Hunt starred alongside Joanna Lumley and Patrick McNee in The New Avengers. The show's producers said he was cast because of his part in Upstairs, Downstairs. Hunt played secret agent Mike Gambit and starred in the show until its end after two series in 1977. After that in the late 1970s and 1980s, Hunt made appearances in Sunday Night Thriller, Minder and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense. In 1988, he played many parts in the Pet Shop Boys' film It Couldn't Happen Here. Hunt was also well known in the United Kingdom for starring in a series of television adverts for the coffee brand Nescafé in the 1980s, with a trademark move; to shake his clenched hand then open it and smell it, to reveal coffee beans. Gareth Hunt continued to have minor roles in many television programmes in the 1990s and 2000s, with appearances in The New Adventures of Robin Hood, Harry and the Wrinklies, Absolute Power (as himself), New Tricks and Doctors. From 1992 to 1993 Hunt had a leading role in the sitcom Side by Side, and had a main role in the short-lived soap opera Night and Day in 2001. In 1997, he appeared in the film Fierce Creatures and in 2001 played Ritchie Stringer, a crime boss who was a suspect in the shooting of Phil Mitchell, in EastEnders.Hunt suffered a heart attack in 1999, and in July 2002 he collapsed while performing on stage in Bournemouth. Gareth Hunt died of pancreatic cancer in 2007.