Zoneboy
03-08-2007, 05:53 AM
Camp actor John Inman, famous for the catchphrase "I'm free" from the hit 1970s series Are You Being Served? has died at the age of 71.
He died at St Mary's Hospital in west London after being ill for some time. Inman suffered from hepatitis A and had been taken into hospital for tests after problems with his liver.
His manager Phil Dale said: "He caught a cold or something which knocked him for six and he was brought back in for tests and then we lost him this morning."
Inman played Mr Humphries in the series alongside Wendy Richard who played shopgirl Miss Brahms as well as Pauline Fowler in EastEnders. Molly Sugden, Frank Thornton and Trevor Bannister also starred.
Richard wept as she spoke about Inman. She said: "John was one of the wittiest and most inventive actors I have ever worked with. He was a brilliant pantomime dame and an all-round brilliant actor."
She said she and her partner John Burns had visited Inman regularly during his illness, adding: "He had been poorly for some time."
Of their time working on Are You Being Served?, she said: "There was never any unpleasantness. We were a really good team."
And she said of Inman's sexuality: "Of course he never said he was gay, he just said he was a young man who was very good to his mother."
The actor had been with his partner Ron Lynch for 35 years. The couple "married" in a civil partnership ceremony at London's Westminster Register Office on December 23, 2005.
Mr Dale said Inman was "one of the best and finest pantomime dames working to capacity audiences throughout Britain."
"John was known for his comedy plays and farces which were enjoyed from London's West End throughout the country and as far as Australia, Canada and the USA."
"Ron Lynch, his partner of many, many years, is absolutely devastated and, at the moment, inconsolable."
Mr Dale said he hoped Inman will be remembered as a "genuine British comedian", adding: "It's a talent for that slightly camp comedy that can't come from any other country in the world."
Hepatitis A is an inflammation of the liver caused through eating contaminated food, which the star believed was how he came to have the virus.
It was revealed that Inman had the disease after it forced him to cancel the opening of a pantomime in London on December 9, 2004. It was his second health scare in three years, after he spent three days in intensive care in 2001.
He died at St Mary's Hospital in west London after being ill for some time. Inman suffered from hepatitis A and had been taken into hospital for tests after problems with his liver.
His manager Phil Dale said: "He caught a cold or something which knocked him for six and he was brought back in for tests and then we lost him this morning."
Inman played Mr Humphries in the series alongside Wendy Richard who played shopgirl Miss Brahms as well as Pauline Fowler in EastEnders. Molly Sugden, Frank Thornton and Trevor Bannister also starred.
Richard wept as she spoke about Inman. She said: "John was one of the wittiest and most inventive actors I have ever worked with. He was a brilliant pantomime dame and an all-round brilliant actor."
She said she and her partner John Burns had visited Inman regularly during his illness, adding: "He had been poorly for some time."
Of their time working on Are You Being Served?, she said: "There was never any unpleasantness. We were a really good team."
And she said of Inman's sexuality: "Of course he never said he was gay, he just said he was a young man who was very good to his mother."
The actor had been with his partner Ron Lynch for 35 years. The couple "married" in a civil partnership ceremony at London's Westminster Register Office on December 23, 2005.
Mr Dale said Inman was "one of the best and finest pantomime dames working to capacity audiences throughout Britain."
"John was known for his comedy plays and farces which were enjoyed from London's West End throughout the country and as far as Australia, Canada and the USA."
"Ron Lynch, his partner of many, many years, is absolutely devastated and, at the moment, inconsolable."
Mr Dale said he hoped Inman will be remembered as a "genuine British comedian", adding: "It's a talent for that slightly camp comedy that can't come from any other country in the world."
Hepatitis A is an inflammation of the liver caused through eating contaminated food, which the star believed was how he came to have the virus.
It was revealed that Inman had the disease after it forced him to cancel the opening of a pantomime in London on December 9, 2004. It was his second health scare in three years, after he spent three days in intensive care in 2001.