Comic actor most famous for role as Lance Corporal Jack Jones in TV series and catchphrase "Don't panic" dies in Portugal
The Dad's Army actor Clive Dunn has died at the age of 92.
The comic actor died in Portugal from complications following an operation earlier this week, the BBC reported.
Dunn was most famous for his role as Lance Corporal Jack Jones in the TV series and the catchphrase: "Don't panic".
His agent, Peter Charlesworth, said the star would be "sorely missed" and "a real loss to the acting profession".
Dunn, who leaves his wife, Priscilla Morgan, two daughters, and grandchildren, was born in London in 1920 into a showbusiness family and started out with a number of small film roles in the 1930s before the war intervened.
He served in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in Greece during the second world war, before being captured and spending four years as a prisoner of war in Austria.
After the war he resumed his career and in 1968 landed the role of Jones in the much-loved sitcom about life on the home front.
The character, a world war one veteran-turned butcher, was notorious for his often rambling recollections of his time in the army.
Dunn also had a No 1 hit in 1970 with Grandad and went on to play the title character in a children's show of the same name.
Charlesworth said: "He had been a star since the mid-1930s. He was a young man playing old men even when he was young."
Dunn, a socialist, also had occasional off-air clashes with the late Arthur Lowe, who played the pompous Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army. Lowe was an active Conservative and when Dunn was awarded an OBE, Lowe said he would accept only a higher honour from the Queen.
In 1986, Dunn wrote his autobiography Permission To Speak, another of his Dad's Army catchphrases.
He spent his last 30 or so years in Portugal, where he occupied himself as an artist, painting portraits, landscapes and seascapes until his sight failed.
Following are some classic clips of Dunn in action on Dad's Army.
Funniest Dad's Army moment ever?
Corporal Jones's rambling stories
 |
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk |