Timothy West: Acclaimed stage and screen actor dies aged 90

Actor Timothy West, one of Britain’s most distinguished and versatile actors, has died at the age of 90, his family have announced.

He was known for roles on stage and screen including in TV sitcoms Not Going Out and Bedtime, dramas such as Bleak House and Gentleman Jack, and soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders.

A statement released by his children said the actor died “peacefully in his sleep” and was “with his friends and family at the end”.

The actor is also survived by his wife, Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, to whom he was married for 61 years.

In recent years, the couple had been followed in 10 series of Channel 4’s Great Canal Journeys.

Scales has had vascular dementia for more than 20 years.

Dame Joanna Lumley said: “Timothy really will be a huge loss, obviously, to Pru, but I think a huge loss to everybody who came to love and respect them, not just the general public, but particularly those who live with dementia.

“I think between them, Timothy and Pru did an amazing job of convincing people that dementia was not something that you should be always afraid of, but something that you could embrace and live with and live with well,” she added on Times Radio.

Paying tribute on X, broadcaster Piers Morgan recalled interviewing West for his Life Stories series with the actor’s wife Scales sitting in the audience.

“[She was] the love of his life… his devotion to her after she developed Alzheimer’s was profoundly touching,” Morgan said.

Former EastEnders actress Tracy-Ann Oberman described West as “the most wonderful actor and human being”.

In their statement, Juliet, Samuel and Joseph West described their father as having had a “long and extraordinary life on and off the stage”.

West leaves “a sister, a daughter, two sons, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren”, the family said, adding: “All of us will miss him terribly.

“We would like to thank the incredible NHS staff at St George’s Hospital, Tooting and at Avery Wandsworth for their loving care during his last days.”

West was born in 1934 in Bradford, the son of actors Lockwood West and Olive Carleton-Crowe.

He attended Bristol Grammar School, where his contemporaries included Julian Glover and Dave Prowse, who would later play Darth Vader in Star Wars.

West began his career in entertainment as an assistant stage manager at the Wimbledon Theatre.

He made his name on stage and screen in the 1960s, and BBC adaptations of Richard II and Edward II in the 1970s saw him reprise roles he had already played to critical acclaim in the theatre.

On the big screen, he played a member of the French intelligence service in the 1973 film adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal.

His lead TV roles included 1980s comedy-drama Brass, in which he played ruthless self-made businessman Bradley Hardacre.

He starred in Lynda La Plante’s 1992 crime drama Framed, and was film-maker Frank Sheringham in 1994 children’s TV series Smokescreen.

In Not Going Out, the British sitcom created by Lee Mack which has been running since 2006, West played Geoffrey, the father of Lucy Adams (played by Sally Bretton).

West also appeared in seven episodes of Coronation Street in 2013 as Eric Babbage, while in EastEnders he played Stan, the patriarch of the Carter family, in 2014 and 2015.

During his career, West portrayed former British prime minister Winston Churchill three times, in From Churchill and the Generals (1979), The Last Bastion (1984) and Hiroshima (1995).

Other roles ranged from Cardinal Wolsey in the 1979 BBC adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, to Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 Cold War drama Breakthrough at Reykjavik, to a racist South African policeman in Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom the same year.

He took over as artistic director of London’s Old Vic theatre in 1980, but his short tenure was marked by a row about a prodction of Macbeth starring Peter O’Toole, which West publicly disowned after it was savaged by critics.

West was a regular and acclaimed performer of Shakespeare himself, portraying King Lear in 2002 and 2016.

In 2019, the actor played Private Godfrey in Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes, a recreation of three missing episodes of the BBC comedy Dad’s Army.

His final screen appearance is in Wednesday’s instalment of BBC One’s Doctors.

“Today’s Doctors episode is a moving reminder of his incredible talent, and it was an honour to have him join us,” the show said on social media. “We send heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.”