Tributes paid to the actor and Up on the Roof singer, one of the few black British entertainers to achieve fame in the 1960s

The entertainer Kenny Lynch has died at the age of 81. Best known for on-screen roles in TV shows including The Sweeney, films such as Carry on Loving and for his pop career, Lynch’s death was announced by his family on Twitter, who commented that he would be “remembered & missed by many”.

Born in Stepney, east London, in 1938, to a Barbadian father and a mother of British and Jamaican heritage, Lynch was a pioneer for black representation in the UK’s entertainment industry. As a musician, Lynch was one of the country’s first black pop stars, touring with the Beatles and scoring two Top 10 hits, among them Up on the Roof – originally recorded by the Drifters – which was released in 1963. He also wrote the theme music for 1978’s Carry on Emmanuelle, Love Crazy. His TV career included roles and appearance on programmes such as Z-Cars, Celebrity Squares and Bullseye.

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Tributes have been paid to Lynch on social media. Broadcaster Danny Baker described him as “one of the key witnesses to the 20th [century] UK music/entertainment scene [who] had a million stories”, while Culture Club singer Boy George described him as “[an] absolutely huge part of my 70s life”. Broadcaster Samira Ahmed called Lynch a “hugely important & stylish figure in British culture … proving to kids like me that we belonged”.

In a video interview with the digital project 1,000 Londoners last year, Lynch spoke about his family and early childhood, growing up at the beginning of the second world war. Lynch noted that they “never had racial problems with people in Cornwall Street, because basically we were probably a novelty … people would say ‘Oh, we’ve got some black people living next door to us; you should come around and see them – they’re almost the same as us’”. He would later become one of a small number of black artists to achieve pop fame in the 60s.

More recently, Lynch toured with Jimmy Tarbuck as a comedian and variety performer, and appeared on the ITV show Last Laugh in Vegas in 2018, alongside Hi-de-Hi!’s Su Pollard and Carry On actor Anita Harris. Lynch is survived by his two daughters, Amy and Bobby.