Andrew Sachs

At 86 years old, Andrew Sachs has this physical status:

Andreas Siegfried "Andrew" Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016) was a German-born British actor.

He made his name on British television and rose to fame in the 1970s for his portrayals of the comical Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers. He went on to have a long career in acting and voice-over work for television, film and radio.

In his later years, he continued to have success with roles in films such as Quartet, and as Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.

Early life

Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina (née Schrott-Fiecht), a librarian, and Hans Emil Sachs, an insurance broker. His father was Jewish and his mother was Lutheran, with Austrian ancestry. The family moved to Britain in 1938 to escape the Nazis. They settled in north London, and he lived in Kilburn for the rest of his life.

In 1960, Sachs married the actress, writer, and fashion designer Melody Lang, who took his surname. He adopted her two sons from a previous marriage, who became known as John Sachs and William Sachs, and the couple had one daughter, Kate Sachs, in 1961. Lang appeared in one episode of Fawlty Towers, "Basil the Rat", as Mrs. Taylor.

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Career

Sachs worked on radio shows in the late 1950s, although not fully researching shipping operations at college, including Private Dreams and Public Nightmares by Frederick Bradnum, who developed an early experimental programme developed by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Sachs made his West End debut as Grobchick in the 1958 version of the Whitehall farce Simple Spymen. In 1959's film The Night We Dropped a Clanger, he made his screen debut. He appeared in numerous television series during the 1960s, including some appearances in ITC programs such as The Saint (1962) and Randall and Hopkirk (1969).

Sachs is best known for his role as Manuel, the Spanish waiter on the legendary sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award (which went to co-star John Cleese). Manuel was "really a tiny part," he said in 1981. In fact, there was only one episode of Fawlty Towers, the one with the hamster, in which I had nothing to do."

Sachs released three singles in person as Manuel; the first was "Manuel's Good Food Guide" in 1977, in which he appeared on the front, in character. Sachs was co-author of the tracks. "O Cheryl" was followed by "O Cheryl" on the B side in 1979, with "Ode to England" on the B side, as "Manuel and Los Por Favors" was followed. Sachs gives credit for the B side of "B" on "B." Wade, who also wrote on the A side, wrote the A side. "Manuel" was a cover version of Joe Dolce's worldwide hit "Shaddap You Face" on the B side in 1981. When it was finally revealed, it ranked at 138th in the UK Chart. Sachs could not be released until the original was struck.

When he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while making a personal appearance as Manuel at the HMV store on London's Oxford Street, he was part of This Is Your Life.

Sachs, a self-employed man who lived in the United Kingdom, denied claims that the character was based on racial stereotypes, saying Manuel may have been a 'foreign' employee.

Sachs was left with second degree acid burns after a fire stunt during the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans." On the set of the show by Cleese, he was also struck with a defective prop and developed a severe headache.

Sachs appeared on television and radio documentaries often, including all five series of BBC's BAFTA Award-winning business television series Troubleshooter starring Sir John Harvey-Jones and the ITV's...from Hell film. Many audio books, including C. S. Lewis' Narnia series and Alexander McCall Smith's debut online book Corduroy Mansions, as well as two audiobooks of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends "Thomas and the Dinosaur" and "Thomas and the Tinosaur," were also narrated, including C. S. Lewis's "Thomas and the Tiger" and "Thomas and the Dinosaur." In the focus on the Family version of C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle by Puzzle the Donkey, he appeared as Puzzle the Donkey. Sachs narrated the spoof documentary film That Peter Kay Thing in 2000. Eyewitness, also narrated the children's book of the same name, was also based on the children's book of the same name.

Sachs appeared in the English-language version of Jan vankmajer's 1994 film Faust. Wish Wellingtons, Starhill Ponies, The Gingerbread Man, Little Grey Rabbit, The Forgotten Toys, Asterix, and the Big Fight were among William's animations. In the English-language version of 1970's cult TV show Monkey, Monkey and the horse.

G. Chesterton's Father Brown, 1984-1986, Dr. John Watson, in four series of original Sherlock Holmes stories for BBC Radio 4, Jeeves in The Count of Monte Cristo on BBC Radio 7, and Tooley in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

Although Manuel Sachs' continued to appear in a number of films, both comedic and dramatic, he attracted the same interest as he did in another. Are You Being Paid? He was the hotel manager Don Carlos Bernardo in 1977, reversing his Fawlty Towers job. The History of Mr Polly, a film made in 1980, and he appeared in the title role of a four-part BBC version. In Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I, he portrayed a French Revolutionary the following year.

In 1990, he appeared on Cluedo as a contestant, battling fellow actor Keith Barron.

Sachs appeared in the popular Thames Television comedy drama series Minder in 1994. In the episode "All Things Brighton Beautiful," he played Sidney Myers.

Sachs portrayed Albert Einstein in an episode of the American PBS series "Understanders" in 1996. Sachs starred opposite Shane Richie in Chris Barfoot's Dead Clean in 1997; in a tale of misidentified identity, Sachs plays airport window cleaner Kostas Malmatakis, who is hired to assassinate a businessman by his cymous employee (Mark Chapman); the British short won a Gold Remi at the Houston Worldfest in 2001.

Sachs has appeared in several Doctor Who films. In a later Doctor Who tale, "Skagra" was played by Big Finish Productions, and in 2008 he appeared in another Doctor Who tale, The Boy That Time Forgot, the older brother of former companion Adric. Sachs had applied in the 1980s to be considered for the role of the Seventh Doctor in the television series.

Sachs appeared in 2005 as the performer in the audiobook version of Urchin of the Riding Stars, the first book in The Mistmantle Chronicles. Reg (Professor Urban Chronotis, Regius Professor of Chronology) appeared in a BBC version of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency in 2007. During its run at Bromley's Churchill Theatre, he would appear in another Adams adaptation as the Book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Sachs had been invited to appear in the ITV soap Coronation Street on November 17, 2008. "My wife was such a fan that I've been watching it since 1962," he said on December 14 that he turned down the bid. Ramsay, Norris' brother, made his debut on the streets in May 2009. In August 2009, he appeared in 27 episodes and left in 27 others.

Sachs performed in "Life after Fawlty," which featured Richard Strauss' voice and piano setting of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden" on tour. Bobby Swanson was in his last big role in the movie Quartet in 2012.

Sachs wrote a number of plays for theatre and radio between 1962 and 1985, in parallel with his acting career. One Man and His Dog was his first radio play in 1962. We'll all know by how much money will die by Ernest Wire's desire to murder his mother and Ruby Drab's attempt to'dispose her spouse,' became a hit on the BBC in 1964 and broadcast in Australia as So You Want to Get Rid of Your Wife. In 1978, BBC Radio 4's The Revenge, a ground-breaking 30-minute performance completely without dialogue, was broadcasting (an experiment in binaural stereo recording), written and performed by Sachs. Jonathan Raban, a playwright, called it a "wordless series of sounds" and "a well-puffed curiosity." The play has since been repeated a number of times on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Made in Heaven, a production that starred Sachs' future Fawlty Towers co-star Prunella Scales when it was originally broadcast on radio in 1971, was brought to the stage in 1975. Patrick Macnee was starring at the Chichester Festival as it appeared. Though it was a huge success, Sachs said in 1981 that "the critics really murdered it."... Actually, I had to comply with the critics. The script was a lot wrong." He declared that he intended to rewrite the script and stage it again.

If anything were to undermine my character, Sachs said he would "concentrate on writing." However, I'm really a part-time writer."

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