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Gorden Kaye 1941 - 2017

Gorden Kaye, bumbling cafe owner star of 'Allo 'Allo

 Gorden Kaye, the actor, who has died aged 75, was almost universally known as René Artois, the bumbling café owner and frustrated philanderer in the enormously popular television comedy series 'Allo 'Allo, which was seen in more than 30 countries by an audience of some 200 million.

Besides playing the character in the television studios, Kaye also starred in record-breaking stage runs in London's West End at the Palladium and the Prince of Wales as well as in America, Australia and New Zealand.

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Gordon Kaye dies aged 75

Best known for his role as Rene Artois in the British sit-comedy 'Allo 'Allo, actor Gorden Kaye dies aged 75.

The character of René, a cowardly Frenchman who only wants a quiet life during the Nazi occupation, was a supremely unlikely sex symbol. Large, fat and balding with a Gallic moustache and habitually clad in a far from clean white apron, he seemed to be constantly wiping sweat from his brow and hands and spoke in an excruciating "franglais" accent.

In the spoof saga of the "secret army", René's café was the HQ for the local Maquis but was also a popular haunt of German officers, who took a close interest in the pretty waitresses - with the exception of the outrageously camp Herr Grüber who only had eyes for René.

René was plagued by members of the Resistance who tried to involve him in heroic deeds, which he sought in vain to wriggle out of. One of the running jokes was his lusting after the delectable waitress Yvette, with whom he was often caught in compromising positions by his long-suffering wife Edith (Carmen Silvera).

René's elaborate, and extremely unlikely, excuses to Edith (a passionate embrace, for example, was merely an attempt to ease Yvette's toothache) usually met with resigned acceptance. They would be prefixed by his catchphrase, "You stupid woman!"

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Kaye managed to make the best possible comic use of the bizarre situations in which René found himself – whether manacled to a pillar attired in scarlet lady's corset and hose; wearing a false nose and looking passably like General de Gaulle; or donning heavy spectacles in the guise of an Abbé.

Kaye built up a vast following of devotees but only realised the extent of their support when in 1988 he was subjected to a series of "revelations" in the tabloid press concerning his homosexuality. The next day, as the curtain went up at the Palladium, the actor received a tremendous ovation from the audience. In response he happily admitted that he was gay, writing a personal memoir called René and Me (1989).

Kaye's enormous popularity was again demonstrated by the public's response after he suffered serious head injuries during the Burns' Day storm of January 25 1990, caused by a piece of wooden advertising hoarding that smashed through his car windscreen. Well-wishers sent thousands of cards and messages to his hospital. Kaye made a remarkably quick recovery, and 24 weeks after the accident was back on stage.

An engineer's son, he was born Gordon Kaye at Huddersfield on April 7 1941 and at the age of three suffered permanent damage to his left eye after a severe coughing fit. He began work in a tractor factory at 16 and was later employed at a wine merchant's and Burtons, the tailors, before becoming a textile mill sales clerk.

After amusing his office colleagues with imitations of the boss, he joined a Bradford amateur dramatic club and at the age of 27 turned professional. A typing error at Equity, the actors' union, gave his Christian name as "Gorden" and so it remained; he used to say that his stage name was "the result of a misspelt youth".

His first break came soon afterwards when the actress Pat Phoenix saw him on stage at Bolton and ensured his recruitment to the cast of Granada Television's Coronation Street as Elsie Tanner's hobbledehoy nephew Bernard.

Subsequently Kaye gained useful stage experience at Sheffield, Stratford East and the Royal Court and played small Shakespearean roles on a National Theatre tour of North America. On television he cropped up Minder, All Creatures Great and Small, Born and Bred, Fame is the Spur and It Ain't Half Hot Mum. His film credits included Escape From the Dark, Porridge, Jabberwocky and Brazil.

An appearance as a Scots photographer in the department-store comedy Are You Being Served? (written by the same team as 'Allo 'Allo) led to Kaye being cast as what he himself described as "this cowardly, cunning, randy man who makes you laugh when you shouldn't".

So as not to disappoint his younger admirers Kaye would greet them at the stage door in his "René" voice: " 'Allo, what eez your nom?"

Kaye was unmarried.

Telegraph, London