News

Prolific comedy actor who worked with Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Hattie Jacques

The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.

Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...

Comedy writer and actor who starred in 70s sitcom Sykes and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has died after a short illness

From writing a film where the only word uttered is "rhubarb" to creating one of TV's most popular sitcom partnerships, Eric Sykes – who died on Wednesday aged 89 – will be remembered as one of Britain's finest comedy actors and writers.

Tributes came in thick and fast for a man who was seldom off radios, stages or screens in a career spanning 60 years that will spark different memories for different generations.

Some will know him best for writing and directing the silly slapstick film The Plank while others will remember his sitcom partnership with Hattie Jacques, who played his perpetually exasperated sister.

More recently, in the face of near total deafness and blindness, Sykes appeared in the fourth Harry Potter film and, in 2007, the British comedy Son of Rambow.

TV and radio comedy legend Eric Sykes has died at the age of 89. Stars have been quick to celebrate the writer and actor who worked with comic icons such as Tommy Cooper and Tony Hancock during his seven decade-long career, praising his comic talents, genius writing skills and humble and generous nature. But for those too young to remember the likes of Sykes and The Plank, here are some classic clips of Eric in action: Sykes, Hattie Jacques on the Billy Cotton Band Show

Eric and his most famous collaborator Hattie Jacques are in fine comic form in this early recording of the Band Show. Billy Cotton joins them for a comic reworking of 'I Caught Mummy Kissing Santa Claus'. Sykes and Jacques

Sykes and Hattie Jacques in one of their earliest TV outings, an early episode of Sykes And A.... Two superb comic actors at (more)...

Eric Sykes, a well-loved British comedian, actor and writer whose career spanned more than 50 years, has died. His manager Norma Farnes tells Reuters Sykes passed away peacefully this morning after a short illness. He was 89. Sykes began his career as a comedy writer in the 1940s in London on the radio show Variety Bandbox and went on to co-write 24 episodes of the classic radio comedy The Goon Show on BBC. His breakthrough in television came in 1960 in Sykes and a…. in which he co-starred with Hatti Jacques in a brother-sister act. He had several supporting roles in feature films including Heavens Above (1963), Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965) and The Spy With A Cold Nose (1966). He is possibly best remembered for the virtually dialogue-free film called The Plank in which he and Tommy Cooper appeared as two workmen delivering planks to a building site. Most recently Sykes appeared in The Others (2001) starring Nicole Kidman,...

London, July 4: British comic legend Eric Sykes died Wednesday after short illness. He was 89 years old.

Some of his best remembered films are "Harry Potter: The Goblet Of Fire", "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," and "The Plank", reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Skyes had written skits for big names like Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. In 1950, he worked in a radio comedy show - "The Goon Show".

In.

It is for comedy that Eric Sykes will be remembered, and here – in clips from his own hit shows and alongside Tommy Cooper, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers – is why

I interviewed Eric Sykes, who has died aged 89, in 2001 and the first thing the subeditor who received my copy said was: "I didn't know he was still alive." The legendary comedian had just filmed a straight role alongside Nicole Kidman in The Others, which demonstrated that his range was wider than people perhaps thought. But it is for comedy that Sykes will be remembered, and here is why.

Reading this on mobile? Click here to view

Sykes started out after the second world war writing for Frankie Howerd and the Goons but by 1960 he had his own sitcom vehicle, Sykes and A …. His unmarried twin sister was played by Hattie Jacques, but perhaps the most memorable episode was more of a solo turn,...

Eric in The OthersActor Eric Sykes has died, aged 89, according to his manager Norma Farnes.

Speaking this morning, she said: "Eric Sykes, 89, star of TV, stage and films died peacefully this morning after a short illness.

"His family were with him."

The Lancashire actor, who began his career in the Fifties, writing and performing on radio, went on to carve a niche in television and film, including the popular TV series Sykes And A... with Hattie Jacques and Sykes.

Known for both his aptitude for visual slapstick gags - typified by The Plank - and more subtle character acting, he also played a number of memorable supporting roles on the big screen, in films as wide ranging as The Others, Son Of Rambow and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. He also provided the "Teletubbies" sign off at the end of each episode of the children's favourite.

He once said:.