Andrew Sachs: Fawlty Towers' Manuel dies aged 86

There were only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs, who played hapless Spanish waiter Manuel in the BBC sitcom, has died aged 86, his family has confirmed.

Sachs, who had been suffering from dementia for four years, died on 23 November and was buried on Thursday. On his role of Manuel, the actor had stated in
2014: "It was just a part I was playing and people seemed to laugh." His Fawlty Towers co-star John Cleese paid tribute to him as "a delight".

Manuel was one of the most imitated comedy characters of the 1970s. The waiter, who famously hailed from Barcelona, often said little more than the word "Que?" to generate laughs, but arguably his most famous line was "I know nothing". The waiter was regularly shown being hit by Cleese's hotel manager character, Basil Fawlty.

"I never got upset when he hit me," Sachs said in 2014. "He's my friend, I must say yes, yes [it hurt], several times, more than once." Cleese, 77, who was also the co-creator of Fawlty Towers, paid tribute to Sachs in an interview. He described his co-star as "a very nice, sweet man and just a brilliant farceur". Cleese added: "He was just a delight, and if you met him, you'd never for a moment think he was a comedian.

"You'd think he was a bank manager, possibly retired. But then you stuck that moustache on him and he turned into a completely different human being."

The Fawlty Towers cast reunited in 2009

Fawlty Towers co-writer Connie Booth, who played hotel maid Polly Sherman in the series, said Sachs "spoke to the world with his body as well as his mangled English." She added: "It made him a universally beloved figure. It was a privilege and an education to work with him." Sachs, who was born in Berlin in 1930 but fled Germany for London in 1938, had dozens of other acting roles, both serious and comic - including stints in TV's two biggest soaps.

In 2009, he played the role of Ramsey Clegg, half-brother of Norris Cole, in ITV's Coronation Street and in 2015 he briefly joined the BBC's EastEnders as Cyril Bishop. He inadvertently became the subject of headlines in 2008 when he received a series of lewd answerphone messages from Russell Brand and fellow BBC Radio 2 presenter Jonathan Ross during a radio show, which related to Sachs's granddaughter.

The so-called Sachsgate affair resulted in Brand and the controller of Radio 2 resigning. Ross was suspended from broadcasting for three months and a review was held into the way its output was vetted.

Andreas Siegfried Sachs was born in Berlin in 1930

Samuel West, whose mother Prunella Scales starred alongside Sachs in Fawlty Towers. "Such warmth and wit; impossible to think of him without smiling." Little Britain creator David Walliams described his performances as Manuel as "comic perfection". He tweeted: "I had the pleasure of working with #AndrewSachs in 'Attachments'. A beautiful soul who never tired of all my 'Fawlty Towers' questions."

Comedy writer and director Edgar Wright said Sachs had "spun comic gold as Manuel in Fawlty Towers". Actor Eddie Marsan, who starred in the BBC's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, tweeted: "RIP Andrew Sachs. You came here as a refugee with nothing but your talent and your spirit, and you enriched our lives. Thank you so much."