Dalziel And Pascoe star Warren Clarke dies at 67

The star, who also appeared in films such as Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, is said to have died after a “short illness”.

Oldham-born Clarke was also known for his starring role in BBC series Down To Earth, about a family who leave the rat race to relocate to rural Devon.

His death was announced by the agency which handled his career, Independent Talent Group.

A statement issued on behalf of his agent said: “The actor Warren Clarke died peacefully in his sleep on November 12 2014, after a short illness.

“He will be greatly missed by his family and loved ones. At this time we ask that you respect their privacy in their time of grief.”

Clarke’s gruff northern accent was familiar to millions who watched him play the taciturn Superintendent Andy Dalziel in the popular BBC drama Dalziel and Pascoe.

The Oldham-born actor played the surly copper for 61 episodes, providing the yin to the yang provided by Colin Buchanan’s Peter Pascoe.

But his career spanned several decades on stage, television and film, ranging from Cold War dramas to comedy and even playing Winston Churchill in the West End.

Born into a poor Lancashire family, he worked hard to achieve fame, telling the Daily Mail in 2011 that he was a “’lucky b******”, adding: “Although I’ve worked nearly 50 years for this, through the tough times as well as the good times.”

He told the paper that before one television series, 1989’s Nice Work, he had to ask friends for money and his wife Michelle had to sell her engagement ring to buy food.

His first big-screen appearance could have led to stardom but was affected by factors out of his control.

A twenty-something Clarke appeared alongside Malcolm McDowell as Dim, a half-witted yet violently evil “droog” in Stanley Kubrick’s controversial 1971 dystopian masterpiece A Clockwork Orange, based on Anthony Burgess’s novel.

After several court cases implicated the film’s brutal violence, including the murder of a tramp in an underpass by a gang featuring McDowell and Clarke’s characters, Kubrick withdrew the film from cinemas and it remained rarely shown until its re-release following his death in 1999.

With appearances in Coronation Street and the Avengers already under his belt Clarke went on to appear in numerous television series and films in a wide variety of roles.

They included a Russian dissident opposite Clint Eastwood in 1982 Cold War thriller Firefox, a violent football hooligan in 1995’s British cult classic ID, and a nouveau-riche, pig-obsessed northern Regency industrialist opposite Rowan Atkinson and Miranda Richardson in Blackadder the Third in 1987.

This appearance spawned some of his best-loved lines, flattering his daughter (Richardson) by telling Blackadder: “I’d no more place her in the hands of an unworthy man than I’d place my John Thomas in the hands of a lunatic with a pair of scissors” and “I love her more than any pig, and that’s saying summat”.

Other brief television appearances included Lovejoy, All Creatures Great and Small and The Onedin Line. He was was also known for his starring role in BBC series Down To Earth, about a family who leave the rat race to relocate to rural Devon.

But it was Dalziel and Pascoe which made him a household name. He starred as the ageing, gritty detective in the TV adaptation of Reginald Hill’s stories about the chalk-and-cheese colleagues for 12 series from 1996 until its conclusion in 2007.

In his 2011 Daily Mail interview he said: “I got lucky with some of the things I did and happened to make bigger money,

“But I’ve never gone into anything thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to make a fortune here’. I want to see the script, the character. I’ve been offered stuff in Hollywood but it was stuff I didn’t want to be involved with.

“I find all that stuff over there a bit unreal and a bit false.”

More recent work included a BBC adaptation of Bleak House nine years ago and Channel 4’s gritty Red Riding trilogy in 2009.

The last role he completed before his death was as Charles Poldark in a BBC revival of the 1970s TV drama Poldark.