Andrew Sachs, ‘Fawlty Towers’ Actor, Dies at 86

Andrew Sachs, a British television star known best for playing Spanish waiter Manuel in “Fawlty Towers,” has died. He was 86.

The actor died in a care home last week after a four-year battle with vascular dementia, and was buried on Thursday, his wife, Melody Lang, told the Daily Mail.

Sachs was born in 1930 in Berlin to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. When he was 8 years old, Sachs and his family moved to England to escape the Nazis.

Before taking on his role in “Fawlty Towers” in the 1970s, Sachs worked on radio productions for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. In 1959, he made his on-screen debut in the film “The Night We Dropped a Clanger.” In the 1960s, he made appearances in several television series, including the British soap opera “Coronation Street.”

In 2008, Sachs was inadvertently entangled in a major controversy when Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross made several vulgar messages on Sachs’ answering machine, where Brand gloated he had sex with his granddaughter, a burlesque dancer, which was later broadcast on his BBC Radio 2 show.

Brand and controller of Radio 2 Lesley Douglass resigned from BBC after the scandal.

Sachs is survived by his wife and three children.

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