Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs dies aged 86
Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs has died at the age of 86.
The actor, famed for playing Spanish waiter Manuel in the 1970s show, had reportedly been battling dementia for four years.
Sachs, who also starred in Coronation Street, was said to have died in a care home on November 23 and was buried in north London on Thursday.
His wife Melody told the Daily Mail he had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012, the second most common form of the disease after Alzheimer's.
"My heart has been broken every day for a long time," she said, adding she had "never once heard him grumble" as he battled the condition.
Mrs Sachs told the newspaper: "It wasn’t all doom and gloom, he still worked for two years.
"We were happy, we were always laughing, we never had a dull moment. He had dementia for four years and we didn’t really notice it at first until the memory started going.
"It didn’t get really bad until quite near the end. I nursed Andrew, I was there for every moment of it."
His son John Sachs tweeted his thanks to people paying tribute to his father.
He told one Twitter user: "We are all grateful for your kind words."
Sachs and his 85-year-old wife were married for 57 years.
"We loved each other very deeply and it was a pleasure looking after him. I miss him terribly," Mrs Sachs said.
John Cleese, who starred alongside Sachs in Fawlty Towers paid tribute to the actor on Twitter as a "very sweet, gentle and kind man", who was a "great farceur".
Actor Tony Robinson and DJ Tony Blackburn so sent their condolences on Twitter
Samuel West, whose mother Prunella Scales starred alongside Mr Sachs in Fawlty Towers, tweeted: "Creator of one of our most beloved EU migrants. Such warmth and wit; impossible to think of him without smiling."
The actor was born in Berlin in 1930 to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father.
The family fled the Nazis and came to the UK in 1938.
From 1984 to 1986, Sachs starred as Father Brown in a BBC radio series based on the stories of GK Chesterton. He also appeared in numerous children's TV shows, including William's Wish Wellingtons, Starhill Ponies and AlfTales.
Sachs was also a narrator on many television documentaries and radio productions. His narrations on audio books included CS Lewis's Narnia series and Alexander McCall Smith's first online book, Corduroy Mansions. Sachs also was the narrator for Peter Kay's That Peter Kay Thing.
But so popular was his part in Fawlty Towers, that he released no fewer than four singles as Manuel, including Manuel's Good Food Guide.
In October, 2008, Sachs was at the centre of a storm in which the comedian Russell Brand and TV presenter Jonathan Ross left obscene and profane messages on his answer-phone, and joked on air.
Sachs' public and television appearances waned and it was later revealed he spent his last four years living with vascular dementia.
He leaves a wife, Melody, who cared for him throughout his illness, and three children.