Ronnie Corbett's death at 85 brings down curtain on a golden age of British entertainment

Ronnie Corbett’s death today united both the showbusiness community and the viewing audience. He was, everyone agreed, a giant.

He left the stage at 85, in hospital, surrounded by Anne Hart, his wife of half a century, and the rest of his family. His passing brought down the curtain on a golden era of light entertainment.

Remembering Ronnie Corbett: Some of his best jokes

He had been a fixture on screen since the 1960s, most famously on The Two Ronnies but also on variety specials and sitcoms. Yet it was a career he almost didn’t have.

Only the spectacular failure of Lionel Bart’s 1965 musical Twang!!, a Robin Hood romp in which Corbett had been cast following years of stooging for Danny La Rue in the cabaret clubs of the old West End, freed him to take up David Frost’s offer of a place in the cast of his new BBC1 series, The Frost Report. The company also included John Cleese and a character actor called Ronnie Barker.

Today, Cleese, who appeared with Corbett and Barker in a fondly-remembered Frost sketch about social class, said on Twitter: “He had the best timing I’ve ever watched. He was a great, kind mentor and a wonderfully witty companion.”

Both Corbett and Cleese flourished under the patronage of Frost, who, having fashioned himself as impresario, signed both of them, and Ronnie Barker, to an exclusive contract. “David turned my life around,” Corbett said later.

Frost engaged the Leeds writer and comic Barry Cryer, who had scripted Corbett’s material with Danny La Rue, to write a sitcom for him, No That’s Me Over Here.

When Frost set up London Weekend Television in 1968, be took both Ronnies with him. It was while the three of them hosted the Bafta awards that a technical fault forced them to ad lib for a few minutes, to the amusement of the BBC executive Bill Cotton, sitting in the audience. He promptly signed them to the corporation.

But Corbett’s career had begun much earlier. After national service in the early 1950s, in which he claimed to have been the shortest commissioned officer in the RAF, he played a succession of schoolboy roles in mostly low-budget British comedies, and performed slapstick on the BBC’s children’s series, Crackerjack.

Yet it was The Two Ronnies that gave him his greatest fame. The format was construc­ted to showcase each Ronnie in equal measure, even if Barker had written many of the scripts while Corbett relaxed on the golf course.

He was still in golf garb when he sat down for his celebrated “chair spots”, sharing an extended single joke with the audience by way of a rambling explanation of some trifle that had occupied him on his way to the studio.

Like most comics of his generation, he did not write the material himself: Spike Mullins and then David Renwick, later to create One Foot In The Grave, wrote his chair spots; Cryer, David Nobbs and others, the sketches.

The show ended in 1987 with Barker’s retirement, but Corbett was embraced by a new generations of comics. He sent himself up with Ricky Gervais, and in 2010, to mark his 80th birthday, he appeared in a new collection of sketches called The One Ronnie.

ONE OF THE GREATEST - BRUCE FORSYTH

Sir Bruce Forsyth has hailed Ronnie Corbett as one of the greatest entertainers the nation has ever seen.

The veteran show man, 88, spoke of his sadness following the death of Corbett and reflected on the “lovely times” they spent together.

In a statement, Sir Bruce said: “I am so very sad to hear the news about Ronnie.

“I have lost a close and very dear friend and we have all lost one of the greatest comedians and entertainers this country has known.

“My thoughts are with Anne and his family.”

Sir Bruce said Corbett was “very adaptable”, adding: “He could work with anybody, even me. He was ... a one of a kind and a half.

“We loved rehearsing together. We had a sense of humour around each other - he took me for what I was and I took him for what he was.”

Sir Bruce reminisced about his friend, saying he had “a real sense of comedy, he was really something”.

Talking about their golfing trips together, Sir Bruce said: “We had some lovely times ... we would laugh at each other ... he was just funny. I wish I could always laugh at golf the way I did with him.

“I loved that he would self-deprecate... Oh, I will miss him, what a lovely man.”

Sir Bruce described Corbett as a “master of his craft” in an interview with Sky News.

He said: “How can there be anybody else like Ronnie really? A great big hole has been left in showbusiness now we no longer have him. It’s sad.”

Sir Bruce also discussed Corbett’s “dapper dress” and “little smile”, adding he was “a character in so many ways”.

“He was a lovely, lovely man and it’s hard to talk about him actually because I can’t believe he’s gone”, he said.