Actor Francis Matthews - best known as detective Paul Temple - dies after short illness

He was best known for playing gentleman amateur detective Paul Temple in the BBC TV series and starred several times on the Morecambe and Wise Show in its golden era thanks to a friendship with the duo forged from their northern roots.

In a 60-year career, he appeared in a variety roles but his suave performance as Temple belied his upbringing in working class York and Leeds. His father Henry was a shop steward at Rowntrees chocolate factory in York before the family moved to Leeds in the 1930s where he joined the then Leeds Rep.

By the 1950s, he was filming alongside screen idol Ava Gardner who, fed up with appearing on the arm of leading men in publicity for the movie Bhowani Junction in 1956, slipped away one night with the actor for tea with his parents, then living in Surbiton, Surrey.

He appeared in a number of Hammer Horror films, as well as alongside Morecambe and Wise in their 1960s big screen roles.

Puppeteer Gerry Anderson approached him in 1966 to voice the main character of his follow-up series to Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, which he based on a party-piece impression of Cary Grant.

He became a household name when he took the role of the playboy Temple in 1969 appearing in 64 episodes.

He took particular pride in his multiple role-playing in the 1975 Alan Plater-scripted series Trinity Tales, plundering the comic roots of his Yorkshire upbringing in a modern re-telling of the Canterbury Tales, as a group of rugby league fans travel to Wembley for the challenge cup final.

He appeared with his wife the actress Angela Brown on stage and screen several times including several Alan Ayckbourn productions among them Absurd Person Singular. She died in 2001 and he is survived by three sons.