Actor Andrew Sachs, best known for playing waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers, has died aged 86.
He had been diagnosed with vascular dementia four years ago and died in a care home last week, his wife Melody told the Daily Mail UK today.
"My heart has been broken every day for a long time," Mrs Sachs said.
Sachs died on November 23 and was farewelled by family and close friends at a funeral in North London yesterday, she said.
The German-born actor rose to fame in the 1970s for his role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers, playing a hotel waiter alongside actor John Cleese as the proprietor.
The comedy series saw Manuel often criticised by the rude Basil Fawlty, who the BBC said was inspired by a hotel proprietor Cleese encountered.
The Spanish waiter is described as the "most loveable character" in the broadcaster's description of Fawlty Towers, which has often been re-run in the decades following its initial release.
Cleese paid tribute to Sachs in a series of posts on Twitter: "A very sweet gentle... and kind man and a truly great farceur. I first saw him in Habeas Corpus on stage in 1973. I could not have found a better Manuel. Inspired".
https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/804471557401833472
https://twitter.com/Tony_Robinson/status/804461017958903809
https://twitter.com/chrisurquhart/status/804463878562160640
https://twitter.com/edgarwright/status/804458693689360384
Sachs went on to act in a BBC radio series and appeared in children's television programmes, as well as acting in the British soap opera Coronation Street.
He arrived in Britain at the age of 8, after his family fled Berlin in 1938.