Scots Hollywood hunk to play first private eye

The 39-year-old star of such Hollywood blockbusters as 300 and The Bounty Hunter is working on a big-budget film about Allan Pinkerton, the legendary Glasgow-born detective and secret agent who founded the detective agency that bears his name.

Pinkerton was born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow in 1819, on a site now occupied by the Glasgow Central Mosque. He left for the United States in his early twenties.

Pinkerton pioneered undercover detective work and secret surveillance techniques, took on some of the Wild West's most notorious train robbers, foiled an early attempt on President Abraham Lincoln's life and organised a network of spies during the American Civil War.

Butler, from Paisley, is working on Pinkerton with Bob Cochran, co-creator, producer and writer of the phenomenally successful American television series 24. The new production was Mr Cochran's idea.

"He was an amazing guy," he said, "He took part in all the great sweeping events of the 19th century."

One of his co-producers suggested approaching Butler, because the Scottish star shared a similar Scottish background with the character.

Butler trained as a lawyer before trying his luck as an actor. He made his big breakthrough as King Leonidas in the historical action movie 300, a surprise international hit four years ago. He now lives in Los Angeles and has been romantically linked with a string of beautiful celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston.

• Background: Undercover detective with a network of secret agents

Butler was so enthusiastic about the project that not only is he set to play Pinkerton, he is also working on it as executive producer as well.

Pinkerton was a complex character. Although his name became closely associated with the American establishment, he had strongly left-wing views, which was one of the reasons he left Britain for a new life in the US.

He was the son of a Glasgow police sergeant, though he trained as a cooper and became actively involved in the Chartists, a political movement that campaigned for social reform and universal suffrage. It seems he may have feared arrest when he embarked across the Atlantic.

He settled in Illinois, where he worked as a cooper, deputy sheriff and then sheriff. In 1850 he founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. At its height it supposedly employed more people than the US army. Its famous symbol was an open eye and the legend "We never sleep", hence the term private eye.

Pinkerton made a living out of tracking down criminals, but at the same time he aided runaway slaves attempting to get to Canada, where slavery was illegal.He was involved in the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses and routes.

Cochran said: "On one hand he was enforcing the law, and on the other he was breaking the law. He was interested in right and wrong, not so much in the the law."