THE MERRY MAN WHO LOVED TO MAKE US LAUGH
HOWARD Lew Lewis was born in a tower block in London’s Maida Vale in 1941.
His early working life saw him employed as everything from paper delivery boy to a computer operator for the Royal Air Force.
But stardom ran in the family, with his grandmother being the internationally renowned opera singer Dame Ethel Gomer-Lewis.
Mr Lewis joked that the reason he started acting was because he thought it looked easy. At the beginning of his career, he lived with former Coronation Street favourite Ken Morley and two other aspiring actors in a house in South London. Mr Lewis and Mr Morley remained life-long friends.
Mr Lewis was a regular fixture on TV and worked alongside a galaxy of stars from Ronnie Barker to Rowan Atkinson. He was best known for his role as Rabies in the BBC children’s programme Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, created and written by Mr Lewis’s close friend and colleague Sir Tony Robinson.
The show, which first aired in 1989, was an instant hit and won several awards, including a BAFTA for Best Children’s Programme.
Mr Lewis also appeared as Hal – one of Robin Hood’s followers – in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves alongside Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman.
In the 1980s hit Brush Strokes, he was the foolish pub landlord Elmo
Putney and, in the historical sitcom Blackadder, he played a range of different medieval peasants.
Mr Lewis also played smaller parts in popular TV series such as Open All Hours, The Queen’s Nose, the ITV drama Minder and Chelmsford 123.
Last month, he told the Scottish Mail on Sunday he would have liked to continue acting but his diabetes and stroke had stopped him.
He wanted the music of BB King and Frank Zappa at his funeral.