Ray Brooks — a prolific British actor who appeared in both film and TV across a five-decade-spanning career, and best known for narrating BBC’s beloved animated series Mr Benn and starring in the six-time BAFTA-nominated sex comedy The Knack… and How to Get It — has died at the age of 86, his family told BBC.
The listed cause of death was a short illness. His family told the publication that he had spent the last few years living with dementia but died peacefully on Saturday with his family at his bedside.
Brooks began his career in the ’60s, appearing in miniseries The Secret Kingdom and Julius Caesar. His first breakthrough series role was in BBC’s dramedy Taxi!, which ran from 1963-64, in which he appeared opposite Sidney James, who plays a cabbie and mentor to Brooks, helping him becoming a taxi driver in London. Around that time, Brooks also landed a role in the ITV soap Coronation Street, preceding his eventual turn in another famed British sudser, EastEnders, some 40 years later.
In 1965, Brooks starred in Richard Lester’s The Knack… and How to Get It, opposite Rita Tushingham and Michael Crawford, playing a confident womanizer. The film is emblematic of the Swinging London cultural era, and notable for featuring the first silver screen appearance of Jane Birkin. Upon its debut, the film also scored the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes.
His other hit projects include the Geoff McQueen-created BBC dramedy Big Deal, in which he starred as a small-time poker gambler whose ups and downs affect his long-suffering girlfriend and daughter.
In Mr Benn, the animated adaptation of the children’s books from illustrator David McKee, Brooks served as the voice behind the series, which traced the titular character’s adventures in a magical costume shop. In a statement to BBC, the actor’s sons Will and Tom said their father thought he was best known for Mr Benn, “with people continually asking him to say the catchphrase ‘as if by magic!’” They added, “Although only 13 episodes were made, they were repeated twice a year for 21 years.”
In film, he appeared in 1973’s Assassin, the 1966 Dr. Who movie Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. and British comedy franchise entry Carry on Abroad, collaborating once more with James.
His additional television credits include The Avengers, Pathfinders, The Expert, Boy Meets Girl, Public Eye, Dixon of Dock Green (also from Taxi! creator Ted Willis), Secret Agent, Black and Blue, Rooms, Jackanory, Death of an Expert Witness, Emergency-Ward 10, The Pickwick Papers, Running Wild, Two People, Growing Pains, Two Thousand Acres of Sky and others. He also participated in a number of televised anthology plays, including for ITV Playhouse, BBC Play of the Month, BBC Sunday-Night Play, Armchair Theatre, Theatre 625, Thirty-Minute Theatre and more. He also had an acclaimed turn in the BBC teleplay Cathy Come Home, which followed a young couple’s struggle with homelessness and chronicled the U.K.’s housing shortage of the late-60s.
On the stage, he appeared in C.P. Taylor’s And a Nightingale Sang at the Queen’s Theatre, Charles Lawrence’s Snap! also featuring Maggie Smith at the Vaudeville Theatre, Tom Stoppard’s On The Razzle at the British National Theatre and Alan Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends with Richard Briers, Peter Bowles and Phyllida Law.
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