Andrew Sachs (1930–2016)

Andrew Sachs was born Andreas Siegfried Sachs in Berlin, Germany. His parents were Katharina, a librarian, and Hans Emil Sachs, an insurance broker. His father was Jewish, of Austrian ancestry. In 1938, when he was eight years old, the family moved to the UK to escape Nazi persecution. In the late 1950s, while at business college, Sachs began working on BBC radio productions. He went on to act with repertory theater and made his West End debut in the 1958 production of the Whitehall farce Simple Spymen. He made his film debut in 1959 in The Night We Dropped a Clanger. He appeared in numerous television series throughout the 1960s, with small roles on shows such as The Saint in 1962. His breakthrough show was the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, created by and starring former Monty Python member John Cleese, which ran for 12 episodes between 1975 and 1979. Sachs played the Spanish waiter Manuel, whose unfortunate bumbling and limited English infuriated Cleese's egotistical and at times abusive hotel owner. Sachs's physical comedy skills and impeccable timing were key to the show's appeal. After Fawlty Towers, he continued to work consistently. He was frequently heard as a narrator of TV and radio documentaries, including all five series of the BBC's series Troubleshooter and ITV's ...from Hell series. He also narrated several audio books, including C. S. Lewis's Narnia series and Alexander McCall Smith's first online book, Corduroy Mansions, as well as two audiobooks of the popular children's TV series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. He performed all the voices in the English-language version of Jan Švankmajer's 1994 film Faust. He also did voices for many animated children's shows. His radio roles included Dr. John Watson in four series of original Sherlock Holmes stories for BBC Radio 4, Jeeves in The Code of the Woosters, and Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo on BBC Radio 7. In 2009, he appeared in 27 episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. Sachs also wrote a number of plays for theater and radio between 1962 and 1978. Sachs married actress, writer, and fashion designer Melody Lang in 1960, and adopted her two sons from a previous marriage; the couple also had one daughter together. His autobiography, named after his Fawlty Towers catchphrase, I Know Nothing! The Autobiography, was published in 2015.