British actor Malcolm McDowell has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The veteran actor was surrounded by family and colleagues as the star was unveiled outside the Pig and Whistle English pub on Hollywood Boulevard.

Among those to pay tribute to McDowell was Oscar nominee and fellow Brit Gary Oldman, who credited the Liverpool-born star with inspiring his acting career.

"It was like the lights went on in my life, in much the same way that John Lennon saw Elvis on screen and said 'that's a good job, I'd like to do that for a living'," he said of McDowell's performance in 1971's The Raging Moon.

"I saw Malcolm in this film and I thought, 'this is what I want to do'."

McDowell came to fame in the late 1960s in Lindsay Anderson's If... before taking on the role of amoral hooligan Alex in A Clockwork Orange. More recently, he has appeared on TV shows including Entourage and Franklin and Bash.

He said: "For a lad that grew up in Liverpool, Hollywood was this notion of everything that was incredible in the movies, and Hollywood has meant so much to the rest of the world - we take it, because we live in LA, sort of for granted."

McDowell also admitted he felt the location of the star was perfect: "My father ran a pub in Burscough in Lancashire, just outside Liverpool, so I feel that from the Bull and Dog to the Pig and Whistle, it's not that far," he said.