JOHN CLEESE has led tributes to Andrew Sachs, the actor best known for starring as Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers.
Andrew was buried on Thursday at 86 after battling vascular dementia for four years, according to reports.
Just heard about Andy Sachs. Very sad….
I knew he was having problems with his memory as his wife Melody told me a couple of years ago…— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) December 1, 2016
…and I heard very recently that he had been admitted to Denham Hall,but I had no idea that his life was in danger. A very sweet gentle…
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) December 1, 2016
…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
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) December 1, 2016
Andrew had been a resident at Denville Hall, a private care home in Northwood, west London. Staff said on Thursday night they were unable to talk about his death.
Recalling a foreword he was asked to write for Sachs’ autobiography in 2014, John said it had moved his co-star to tears.
Andrew, who died at a care home on November 23, penned the book, titled I Know Nothing: The Autobiography.
“The first time I set eyes on him was at the Lyric Theatre, Shafesbury Avenue in the autumn of 1973. Andy was appearing with Sir Alec Guinness in Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus, an exquisitely crafted sex farce about the impact of the permissive society on a respectable family in Brighton in the 1960s.
“Andy was playing the role of a piano tuner, but the magnificent Margaret Courtenay mistook him for the man who was coming to measure her for a custom-made bra. When Andy started on the standard pianist’s hand-and-finger stretching routine, she began to register anticipation of nameless carnal delights, producing one of the funniest farcical moments I have ever seen.
“Weak with laughter, I managed to open my programme and underline his name.
“Only a few weeks later I was casting a short film called Romance With A Double Bass, and I asked Andy to join us for a few days’ shooting. It turned out to be a very happy collaboration, and I observed what a wonderfully inventive comic actor I was working with. Luckily, Connie Booth and I were already writing the pilot episode of Fawlty Towers, and so I had the inspired idea of casting Andy as Manuel.
“Inspired? Let me explain something. If you met Andy socially it would never occur to you for one moment that he was an actor. You would guess he was a senior civil servant, or a physician, or an academic, or perhaps a research scientist.
“He is quiet, thoughtful, beautifully mannered, well informed, observant and extremely kind. But once you put that moustache on him… Ole! Manuel appears as if from nowhere.
“I salute you, Andy. You created one of the great comic characters.”
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