Acclaimed stage and screen actor dies aged 90

Actor Timothy West, considered one of Britain’s most distinguished and versatile actors, has died on the age of 90, his household have introduced.

He was recognized for roles on stage and display screen together with in TV sitcoms Not Going Out and Bedtime, dramas reminiscent of Bleak Home and Gentleman Jack, and soaps Coronation Avenue and EastEnders.

An announcement released by his children mentioned the actor died “peacefully in his sleep” and was “together with his family and friends on the finish”.

The actor can be survived by his spouse, Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, to whom he was married for 61 years.

Lately, the couple had been adopted in 10 seasons of Channel 4’s Nice Canal Journeys.

Of their assertion, Juliet, Samuel and Joseph West described their father as having had a “lengthy and extraordinary life on and off the stage”.

West leaves “a sister, a daughter, two sons, seven grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren”, the household mentioned, including: “All of us will miss him terribly.

“We want to thank the unimaginable NHS employees at St George’s Hospital, Tooting and at Avery Wandsworth for his or her loving care throughout his final days.”

West was born in 1934 in Bradford, the son of actors Lockwood West and Olive Carleton-Crowe.

He attended Bristol Grammar Faculty, the place his contemporaries included Julian Glover and Dave Prowse, who would later play Darth Vader in Star Wars.

West started his profession in leisure as an assistant stage supervisor on the Wimbledon Theatre.

He made his title on stage and display screen within the Nineteen Sixties, and BBC diversifications of Richard II and Edward II within the Seventies noticed him reprise roles he had already performed to vital acclaim within the theatre.

His different lead TV roles included Nineteen Eighties comedy-drama Brass, through which he performed ruthless self-made businessman Bradley Hardacre.

In Not Going Out, the British sitcom created by Lee Mack which has been operating since 2006, West performed Geoffrey, the daddy of Lucy Adams (performed by Sally Bretton).

West additionally appeared in seven episodes of Coronation Avenue in 2013 as Eric Babbage, whereas in EastEnders he performed Stan, the patriarch of the Carter household, in 2014 and 2015.

Throughout his profession, West portrayed former British prime minister Winston Churchill 3 times, in From Churchill and the Generals (1979), The Final Bastion (1984) and Hiroshima (1995).

In 2019, the actor performed Personal Godfrey in Dad’s Military: The Misplaced Episodes, a recreation of three lacking episodes of the BBC comedy Dad’s Military.

He was additionally an everyday performer of Shakespeare, portraying King Lear in 2016 and 2002.