Edward Woodward died on Monday at the age of 79. (Lennox McLendon/Associated Press)

Edward Woodward, who starred as a former secret service agent The Equalizer television series, and in the movies Breaker Morant and The Wicker Man, died on Monday. He was 79.

Woodward won an Emmy Award in 1990 for Remembering World War II, and a Golden Globe in 1987 for The Equalizer, which ran for 88 episodes in the late 1980s on CBS.

In a statement, his agent Janet Glass of the Eric Glass Ltd. agency in London said Woodward died in a Cornwall hospital near where he lived. He had been suffering from pneumonia.

Despite triple-bypass heart surgery in 1996 and a prostate-cancer diagnosis in 2003, he worked until recently.

His career spanned almost seven decades. He started out as a Shakespearean stage actor, later moving into film and more than 2,000 parts in television productions ranging from the British soap opera EastEnders to the title role in Callan, which claimed to be television's answer to James Bond on the big screen.

"I think I've probably done more television than any actor living," he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 1987.

His last film, A Congregation of Ghosts, is now in post-production.

He also recorded albums of music, poetry and audio books.

Woodward was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1978.

He is survived by his second wife, actress Michele Dotrice, their daughter, and two sons and a daughter from his first marriage.

With files from The Associated Press