Maia Davies & John Hand
BBC News
BBC
Brooks’s sons said their dad ‘shunned the spotlight’ despite his dazzling TV career
TV actor Ray Brooks, who starred in some of the UK’s best-known programmes in a career spanning five decades, has died aged 86.
Brooks narrated the classic 1970s children’s show Mr Benn and played the male lead in the ground-breaking 1960s BBC drama Cathy Come Home.
He also starred in primetime 1980s programmes Big Deal, in which he played loveable rogue gambler Robbie Box, and Running Wild, as the comic lead Max Wild.
Brooks also became one of few actors to appear in both Coronation Street and EastEnders. He played Norman Philips in the ITV soap in the 1960s, and arrived in Albert Square 40 years later to portray Joe Macer, who infamously murdered his wife Pauline Fowler.
He died on Saturday after a short illness, his family told the BBC.
In a statement, the actor’s sons Will and Tom said their dad thought he was best known for Mr Benn, “with people continually asking him to say the catchphrase ‘as if by magic!'”.
The cartoon followed Mr Benn who, through dressing up in a magical costume shop, found himself in a new adventure every episode.
Brooks’s sons added: “Although only 13 episodes were made, they were repeated twice a year for 21 years.”
Brooks starred alongside Sharon Duce in the 1980s primetime show Big Deal
The list of TV shows in which Brooks appeared in the 1960s and 1970s reads like a run-down of the British small screen’s biggest hits of the era.
They included roles in Danger Man, Dixon of Dock Green, Emergency-Ward 10, The Avengers, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Z Cars.
He also had a number of film successes, including in the 1965 film The Knack… and How to Get It, which won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
He played Georgio, the waiter in the crumbling hotel, in Carry On Abroad in 1972, and also appeared in the 1966 Dr Who movie Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.
Brooks also enjoyed appearances in the theatre, including Alan Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends alongside Richard Briers, Peter Bowles and Phyllida Law. He also starred opposite Felicity Kendal in Tom Stoppard’s On The Razzle.
Brooks in Cathy Come Home, which is regarded as one of Britain’s most ground-breaking TV programmes
His most acclaimed role came early in his career when he played Reg in the gritty BBC TV play Cathy Come Home, which chronicled Britain’s housing shortage in the late 1960s.
Directed by Ken Loach and filmed in a documentary style, it followed a young couple’s struggle with homelessness. It is regularly cited as one of the most influential TV broadcasts of all time.
But arguably Brooks’s biggest mainstream successes came in the 1980s, with two successive primetime leading roles.
In Big Deal, his character Robbie Box seeks to make a living playing poker and betting on horses and dogs – while trying to keep his relationship together with his partner Jan, played by Sharon Duce.
The fast-talking Londoner became one of TV’s best-loved working-class characters in an era of Del Boy Trotter and Arthur Daley
Brooks joined EastEnders in 2005 as Joe Macer, who went on to marry and murder one of the show’s original characters, Pauline Fowler
Their marriage soured – including a memorable scene in which Pauline hit Joe over the head with a plate. Joe killed Pauline, who died in the middle of Albert Square on Christmas Day
Joe tried to stop Dot Branning – another iconic EastEnders character – from calling the police after she found out he was responsible for Pauline’s death
Duce went on to appear in an episode of Running Wild, Brooks’s next big hit – where he switched channels to ITV for a sitcom about a former Teddy Boy going through a mid-life crisis.
His popular partnership with Duce was revived by the BBC in 1992’s Growing Pains, which saw the pair play a couple who become foster parents.
Throughout his career his unmistakeable voice saw him land several roles as narrator, including the beloved children’s show Mr Benn, The Pickwick Papers and 30 episodes reading the stories to young viewers in Jackanory.
He also voiced thousands of adverts for companies including Guinness, Whiskas, Marmite and R Whites Lemonade.
Will Brooks
One of Brooks’s proudest possessions was a specially commissioned illustration showing him having a drink with Mr Benn
Nonetheless, his sons said Brooks “shunned the limelight” in real life.
They said: “His three true loves were family [he also had a daughter Emma, who died in 2003], Fulham Football Club, and spending time in Brighton, where he was born.
He was among the celebrity Fulham fans who fought against the club’s proposed merger with QPR in the 1980s – and son Will recalled that Brooks even wore a “Save Fulham” badge during an interview on Wogan at the time.
The family revealed that he had spent the last few years living with dementia but died peacefully on Saturday with his family at his bedside.