Andrew Sachs, who played well-meaning but disorganized Spanish waiter Manuel on the BBC series “Fawly Towers,” died on Nov. 23, the Daily Mail reported Thursday. He was 86.
According to his wife, Melody Sachs, the actor had suffered from macular dementia, which he was diagnosed with in 2012.
“We were happy, we were always laughing, we never had a dull moment,” the Daily Mail reported Melody Sachs as saying. “He had dementia for four years and we didn’t really notice it at first until the memory started going.”
Despite he illness, his widow said, “I never once heard him grumble.”
“Fawlty Towers,” which starred John Cleese as inept hotel owner Basil Fawlty, ran for two seasons from 1975 to 1979, but went on to become a comedy classic both in the U.K. and America.
Born in Germany, Sachs moved to England with his family in 1938. Initially working in radio and on stage, Sachs made his screen debut in 1959’s “The Night We Dropped a Clanger.”
In addition to “Fawlty Towers,” Sachs’ television credits included “The Saint” and “Randall and Hopkirk.”
In 2008, Sachs was the victim of a cruel prank when Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross made a number of obscene phone calls to him during an episode of “The Russell Brand Show.” In the messages, Brand and Ross claimed that they had slept with Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie.
The BBC later apologized to Sachs for the prank, and Brand resigned from the show.
A spokesperson for Sachs has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.