British television comedian Ronnie Barker has died after a long illness.
Ronnie Barker died yesterday
The TV legend, famous for his hugely successful show, The Two Ronnies, was 76.
His agent, Rosalind Chatto, said he died yesterday at 12.15 pm after a long period of heart trouble. "He died peacefully and his wife was with him. He had been nursed at home for a long time," she said.
Barker will be remembered as one of the most successful personalities in the history of British television.
Among his other successes were Porridgeand Open All Hours.
He will be best remembered for his role alongside Scottish comedian Ronnie Corbett for the hugely successful The Two Ronnies, which brought them both international fame.
Having first worked with Corbett as a writer on The Frost Reportin 1966, the pair then teamed up for their first BBC series in 1971, and The Two Ronniesbegan a 16-year run that yielded 12 series, plus Christmas specials, adding up to a total of 98 shows.
By the time that programme had become a mainstay of BBC One's Saturday night schedule, Barker was enhancing his reputation as smart-alec prisoner Fletcher in Porridge- the programme he considered his best.
"I knew with Porridge from the first episode. It was in front of an audience, which is a wonderful sounding board as to how well it's going. My wife was in the audience for that and she said afterwards 'this is going to be a big success' and she was right."He continued his success in situation comedy as the lugubrious, stuttering shopkeeper Arkwright in Open All Hours playing opposite David Jason who went onto huge fame as Inspector Frost and Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses.
Arkwright was his favourite character. "We had a whale of a time," Barker recalled. "We did thoroughly enjoy that." His successes earned him numerous accolades including three Bafta awards and an OBE in 1978.
He surprised and disappointed his millions of fans when in 1987 he announced his retirement at the age of 57 to concentrate on his beloved antique shop in the Cotswolds.
He vowed never to return to the spotlight but was on occasion persuaded to make public appearances at awards ceremonies and TV specials. In 1999 he appeared in a Two Ronnies retrospective and soon after played Winsotn Churchill's long-suffering manservant Inches in the BBC drama The Gathering Storm.
Afterwards, he confessed: "The feeling of being on the set was very new and strange to me at first. I was a bit nervous about doing it again, but the first day, I fitted in fine once I got there."
He also shot the film My House In Umbria with Dame Maggie Smith and Timothy Spall in Italy.
He wrote several books, including Book Of Bathing Beauties (1974), Book Of Boudoir Beauties (1975), A Pennyworth Of Art (1986) and his autobiography Dancing In The Moonlight (1993).
Born Ronald William George Barker on September 25, 1929 in Bedford, he was educated at Oxford High School and began his acting career with the Aylesbury Repertory Company in 1948.
By 1955, he was appearing in roles in West End productions, including Mourning Becomes Electra, Summertime, Listen To The Wind, Double Image, Casino Road, Lysistrata, Platanov, On and Midsummer Night's Dream.
Barker married Joy Tubb in 1957. The couple had two sons and one daughter.