John Malcolm was born in Stirling in 1936. He had an unhappy childhood and at the age of 16 trained to be a Methodist minister.

However, after doing his national service in Hong Kong, he returned to the UK in 1958 to take up a place at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He had also won a scholarship to attend RADA.

His first involvement in the theatre was at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. In 1962 he appeared at the Festival Fringe in an obscure play named Anne Tryall of Heretiks performed in the back of a bookshop on Charles Street.

Malcolm, along with stage manager friend Terry Lane, approached the shop's owner John Haynes about forming a permanent home for obscure productions.

Malcolm suggested the disused brothel two floors above his flat in James Court as a venue.

In January 1963 this became the Traverse theatre, capable of holding only 60 people who sat either side of the stage. Malcolm and Lane were joint artistic directors of the venue.

The theatre was due to open with a production of Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre. However, Malcolm fell out with Lane during rehearsals and subsequently left the Traverse.

Though his involvement with the Traverse ceased here, Malcolm is credited with having got the project off the ground and helping to create one of the most important theatres in the UK.

After leaving Edinburgh, Malcolm went on to act in theatres across the UK, including a spell at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he met his wife Tamara.

He founded a second theatre company in Gloucestershire in 1974 – The Theatre, Chipping Norton – converting a disused Salvation Army citadel.

He left the theatre three years later. In the same year his marriage also broke down.

In 1994 he returned to Edinburgh and was described as being as combative as ever, in spite of his ill health.

Alongside his theatre work, Malcolm appeared on television in Dennis Potter's play Pennies from Heaven as well as in several popular TV shows including Coronation Street, Dr Finldlay's Casebook, Hamish Macbeth and Inspector Morse.

Co-founder of the Traverse, Richard Demarco, said: "My abiding memory of John was of him bodily carrying the red plush seats from a cinema on the Royal Mile which was closing and installing them in the empty room of what became the Traverse. He was a generous-hearted Scot who lived to see his dream come true – but at the very last moment was denied the right to guide it in its fledgling year. He participated with enthusiasm in my Fringe programme and I was happy to see him thoroughly at home in the company of a new generation of Fringe actors."

Malcolm is survived by his daughter and by his son.