Wife revealed how he had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012

Andrew Sachs died at care home last week and was buried on Thursday

Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs has died at the age of 86 following a secret four-year battle with dementia that left him wheelchair-bound and unable to speak.

The much-loved actor, best known for his portrayal of put-upon Spanish waiter Manuel in the classic 1970s sitcom, passed away in a care home last week and was buried on Thursday.

His wife Melody, who cared for him tirelessly, said: ‘My heart has been broken every day for a long time.’

She also revealed that she collapsed while caring for him. After developing acute stress, she was taken into intensive care but ‘got over it real quick’ and bounced back so that she could carry on looking after him.

Scroll down for video

Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs has died at the age of 86. He is pictured here for the last time with his wife Melody, who cared for him through-out his illness

The much-loved actor, best known for his role as put-upon Spanish waiter Manuel in the classic 1970s sitcom, passed away in a care home last week and was buried on Thursday

She said the couple were happy until the end, adding: ‘I never once heard him grumble.’

Mrs Sachs told how her husband had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012. It is the second most common form of the disease after Alzheimer’s.

Mrs Sachs, 85, said: ‘It wasn’t all doom and gloom, he still worked for two years.

‘We were happy, we were always laughing, we never had a dull moment. He had dementia for four years and we didn’t really notice it at first until the memory started going.

‘It didn’t get really bad until quite near the end. I nursed Andrew, I was there for every moment of it.’ The actor died on November 23 and yesterday family and close friends gathered for his funeral and burial in North London.

Eight years ago, Sachs was inadvertently thrust into the headlines when he fell victim to a cruel prank by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross. The affair became known as Sachsgate.

Melody Sachs said her husband had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012

Fawlty Towers star John Cleese took to Twitter (pictured) to pay tribute to Andrew Sachs

Mrs Sachs said: ‘Dementia is the most awful illness. It sneaks in in the night, when you least expect it. It took a long time for Andy’s brain to go.

‘Even about a month before he died he was sitting in the garden and chatting away.’

After a bout of pneumonia that nearly killed him, doctors said he would need to go into a home. Earlier this year, he moved into Denville Hall, a private care home in Northwood, West London, for retired actors.

Mrs Sachs, who is mother of Sachs’ 54-year-old daughter Kate, said: ‘I couldn’t think of anywhere nicer than Denville Hall. The staff are wonderful.

‘He was in there for eight months and it was summertime. We sat in the garden together. It was wonderful. I used to read to him, tell him stories. We had a happy time.’ Speaking from the couple’s five-bedroom home in North-West London the night before her husband’s burial, Mrs Sachs said she still felt his presence.

‘Don’t feel sorry for me because I had the best life with him,’ she said. ‘I had the best husband and we really loved each other.

‘One thing about Andrew is that I never once heard him grumble, I never found him once without a smile on his face. We laughed because we’re both silly.

‘We’re both as daft as brushes, we were married for 57 years, we loved each other very deeply and it was a pleasure looking after him. I miss him terribly.’

After a bout of pneumonia, doctors said Sachs would need to go into a home. Earlier this year, he moved into Denville Hall, a private care home in Northwood, Middlesex, for retired actors

Sachs is shown with his wife Melody at the British Soap Awards in 2009 (left), and also with his daughter Kate Sachs (right) in 1997

Mrs Sachs said the couple spent an almost idyllic summer at Denville Hall surrounded by the other patients and staff.

‘At least four times a day I went up there, and my daughter went up there on Sunday. He was never without a visitor.’

Mrs Sachs had planned a special Christmas at Denville Hall, buying presents for the staff and patients and throwing a Christmas movie marathon in the home’s inbuilt cinema.

Sachs, who was born in Berlin in 1930 to a Roman Catholic mother and a Jewish father and came to Britain when the family fled the Nazis in 1938, died after rapidly deteriorating over the course of ten days.

Mrs Sachs said: ‘It wasn’t until the very end that it got very bad. He had the best doctor you could ever have, who helped me a lot.

Born in Berlin in 1930, Sachs’ Catholic librarian mother, Katharina, and Jewish father, Hans Emil Sachs, fled with the family to Britain in 1938 before starting a career in acting

Sachs went on to enjoy a prolific TV, radio and stage career, with parts in Dr Who, Casualty and Radio 4’s adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster (shown in ITV drama Crown Court)

‘Even at the end, he showed me how he was going to die. He wasn’t eating and … he died after three days. He had the best life, and the best death you could ever have.’ Vascular dementia, also known as vascular cognitive impairment, affects around 150,000 people in the UK.

It is caused by a reduced bloody supply to the brain and symptoms can include memory loss, speech difficulties, depression and walking problems.

During the last few weeks, when Sachs lost his ability to talk and write, his wife would read him stories as the pair sat in the landscaped grounds of his care home. She said her husband had suffered pneumonia three times during the course of his illness.

She added: ‘I was so ill [caring for him] I was in intensive care. I got over it real quick. I got over it because I’m a very strong person and I learned to cope with it.’

'SICK STUNT THAT MADE ME WANT TO HIT JONATHAN ROSS': SACHS' WIFE TALKS ABOUT THE PRANK WITH RUSSELL BRAND The wife of Andrew Sachs revealed this week how she wanted to punch Jonathan Ross over the sick stunt he and comedian Russell Brand performed at her husband’s expense. Brand and Ross left obscene voicemail messages for the elderly actor during a BBC radio show in 2008. They made a series of calls to Mr Sachs, who had agreed to appear on Radio 2’s The Russell Brand Show. Reaching his answerphone, they left sexually explicit messages – which they broadcast on air – revealing that Brand had slept with Mr Sachs’s granddaughter Georgina Baillie, a burlesque dancer. The tasteless stunt caused a rift with members of Mr Sachs’s family and deeply upset his wife Melody. Brand and Ross infamously left obscene voicemail messages for the elderly actor during a BBC radio show in 2008 Speaking about the incident this week, Mrs Sachs said: ‘It was horrific. My one sadness is that I never got to hit Jonathan Ross. I have had the most pathetic letters from Russell Brand. ‘One day I’ll get my chance and I’ll be able to hit Jonathan Ross. I just missed it one night. Those two, Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, are absolutely awful. ‘Russell Brand sent me a three-page letter with his telephone number and his email to get in touch with him and this and that – Jesus, you’ve got to be joking. He was the one who was seeing my granddaughter, that’s how it all started, she told him who her grandfather was.’ The scandal over the voicemail messages caused a nationwide furore. Brand, 41, resigned from his show and Ross, 56, was suspended for three months. He later quit the BBC. Broadcasting watchdog Ofcom launched an inquiry, while then prime minister, Gordon Brown criticised the presenters for ‘clearly inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour’. Mr Sachs was diagnosed with dementia four years later. In an interview with BBC Breakfast in 2014, he appeared to take a sideswipe at Ross, calling him ‘the other one’, and said the pair’s apologies had meant nothing to him. Advertisement

Mrs Sachs, who has just secured her first publishing deal, told how sad she was that her husband would not see her debut novel The Girl from the Tyne, when it is published in April.

She said: ‘I wrote it while he was ill. I wrote the book so I wasn’t wasting my time, just sitting and staring at him? He was so proud of me when I finished my book.’

Her husband enjoyed a prolific TV, radio and stage career, with parts in the Saint, Dr Who, Casualty, The History of Mr Polly and Radio 4’s adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster.

Mrs Sachs, her eyes lighting up as she paid tribute to her husband, said: ‘He always looked gorgeous. He was a very handsome guy actually. Everybody says it, but it’s true, he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in my entire life. He’s loved and respected and the public adore him.’

Sachs appears on This Morning in 2014. Mrs Sachs said her husband had suffered pneumonia three times during the course of his illness, and that she also nearly died caring for him

She added: ‘I was so ill [caring for him] I was in intensive care. I got over it real quick. I got over it because I’m a very strong person and I learned to cope with it.’

Mrs Sachs, who has just secured her first publishing deal, told how sad she was that her husband would not see her debut novel The Girl from the Tyne, when it is published in April.

She said: ‘I wrote it while he was ill. I wrote the book so I wasn’t wasting my time, just sitting and staring at him? He was so proud of me when I finished my book.’

Her husband enjoyed a prolific TV, radio and stage career, with parts in the Saint, Dr Who, Casualty, The History of Mr Polly and Radio 4’s adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster.

Mrs Sachs, her eyes lighting up as she paid tribute to her husband, said: ‘He always looked gorgeous. He was a very handsome guy actually. Everybody says it, but it’s true, he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in my entire life. He’s loved and respected and the public adore him.’

'I could not have found a better Manuel. Inspired': John Cleese leads tributes to his Fawlty Towers co-star Andrew Sachs after his death aged 86

By Stephanie Linning for MailOnline

John Cleese has today led the tributes to his Fawlty Towers co-star Andrew Sachs after his death aged 86 following a secret battle with dementia.

The much-loved actor, best known for his portrayal of put-upon Spanish waiter Manuel in the classic 1970s sitcom, passed away in a care home last week and was buried on Thursday.

On hearing the news, Cleese tweeted: ' Just heard about Andy Sachs. Very sad.... I knew he was having problems with his memory as his wife Melody told me a couple of years ago...

He added: '[A] kind man and a truly great farceur. I first saw him in Habeas Corpus on stage in 1973.I could not have found a better Manuel. Inspired.'

Dozens of devastated fans paid their respects on Twitter as they heard the news of his death.

They joined stars including David Walliams, Sir Tony Robinson and Tony Blackburn, who were united in grief today.

The master who turned Manuel into comedy gold and how he originally wanted to make the waiter a German

By Christopher Stevens

When Andrew Sachs was first offered the role of Manuel the hapless waiter from Barcelona, he pleaded with Fawlty Towers creator John Cleese to make the character German — ‘because I’m not sure I can do a Spanish accent’.

Cleese respected his co-star enough to consider the suggestion seriously. In the end, though, he overruled him, in the process giving one of Britain’s best-loved TV sitcoms a comic character of peerless genius.

Cleese was convinced there would never be sufficient comic material in a German waiter — Heinrich from Munich would be efficient, competent, confident, all the things Manuel could not be.

Sachs was best known as the hapless and lovable waiter Manuel in John Cleese’s 1975 and 1979 series’ of Fawlty Towers. For his hilarious portrayal, he received a Bafta nomination

Certainly, Basil Fawlty’s xenophobic catchphrase ‘You’ll have to excuse him, he’s from Barcelona . . .’ would never have worked if it had been ‘ You’ll have to excuse him, he’s from Munich . . .’

The diminutive Sachs won his way on another point. An introverted, shy man despite his flamboyant comic performances, he liked to have something to hide behind on stage, and so he suggested a moustache. Even if his Spanish accent was unconvincing, his facial hair could be magnificently Catalan.

Again Cleese hesitated. His own character, the demented hotel-keeper Basil Fawlty, had a moustache. Was that one too many?

Sachs persisted, and Manuel with his bushy moustache, toothy grin and frightened eyes was born.

The much put-upon Manuel had a lot to be frightened about — Basil would thump, clout, kick or flatten him several times an episode, as the little waiter pleaded, ‘Meester Fawlty!’ Sachs’s gift for physical comedy was one of the joys of the show. He would watch Basil’s hand, as the manic hotelier wound himself up to deliver another ‘smack on head’, and though his gaze would fill with sadness, he did not flinch.

Fawlty Towers made Sachs a household name. Pictured are its stars Connie Booth, John Cleese, Andrew Sachs and Prunella Scales

Very quickly he’d rediscover his characteristic optimism, and bustle into the dining room — only to misunderstand another order or pour coffee in the lap of another guest.

Sometimes the blows were as hard as they looked. At the end of the episode called The Wedding Party, Basil knelt on Manuel and belaboured him with a saucepan.

‘I don’t know why we didn’t get a rubber one,’ Cleese later admitted. ‘I was trying to hit Andrew with a sort of sliding blow, but just as I started he straightened up, and I’m afraid he had a headache for about two days.’

For his part, Sachs claimed that he tried to complain about his treatment but Cleese brushed him off: ‘We’re not doing eight shows a week in the West End. It’s once in your life. Now pull yourself together!’

In the last episode of the first series, Sachs was even more badly hurt. Manuel burst out of the kitchen after the chip pan was set on fire, with his sleeve smouldering, only to be pushed back screaming through the door by Basil.

The screams were real: the billowing smoke came from chemicals that were burning his arm. Sachs later received £700 damages for injuries from the BBC.

Andrew Sachs reprised his character of Manuel alongside John Cleese during a gala night in honour of Prince Charles' 60th birthday in 2008

Before shooting even began, Cleese knew he could count on Sachs to be hilarious, and a trouper. They first worked together on a short industrial training film for Cleese’s Video Arts company, which spurred the ex-Python to see him in the theatre, co-starring with Alec Guinness in Alan Bennett’s farce, Habeus Corpus.

‘He just made me laugh till it hurt,’ Cleese said. ‘I realised how good he was at physical comedy.’

What no one in the audience could have guessed was that Sachs’s first language was German — and that he didn’t speak English until he was eight. He was born, the youngest of three, in Berlin in April 1930, the son of a librarian and a banker who had lost his family fortune after World War I.

To escape Hitler, the family moved to Vienna, but his Jewish father Hans was arrested by the Nazis when Andreas (as he was called) was eight. Two SS officers seized Hans in a restaurant and marched him away, telling his family: ‘This is the last time you will see him.’

By a miracle, Hans had friends who secured his freedom, and in 1938 the family fled to London. When they arrived, all Andreas knew how to say was: ‘I’m sorry, I do not understand, I’m a little German boy.’ Later, he learned that children like him were labelled ‘mischlings’ (mongrels) by the Nazis.

At 15, Sachs decided to become an actor: a schoolfriend had been working as an extra and it seemed like easy money. ‘I liked the idea of being rich and famous and not having to work too hard,’ he said.

He won a place at Rada and did two terms before his national service. When he came out of the Army in 1950, he launched into repertory theatre, learning his trade with fellow novice Prunella Scales, who would later play Sybil Fawlty.

After being noticed by Noel Coward, he landed a West End part in the musical After The Ball, understudying ‘the hugely significant part of Lady Windermere’s footman,’ as he would say with typical self-deprecation. But the role mattered enough to help him onto the BBC’s books as a radio performer.

When Andrew Sachs was first offered the role of Manuel the hapless waiter from Barcelona, he pleaded with Fawlty Towers creator John Cleese to make the character German

In one month in 1954, he acted in 17 radio plays, opposite stars including Dame Edith Evans and Richard Burton.

In 1960, he married Melody Lang, an actress and divorced mother of two. Andrew adopted Melody’s two sons, Bill and John, and a year later their daughter Kate was born.

With his German upbringing, he fretted that he was sometimes too stern a father, but discipline had been instilled in him from an early age. He always remembered how a neighbour in Berlin reprimanded him for clowning around, warning: ‘We Germans might have many faults, but a sense of humour is not one of them.’

His radio career led to TV work, starting with a series of plays by Brian Rix and going on to shows such as The Saint.

But it was Fawlty Towers that made him a household name: ‘It was only 12 episodes,’ he said, ‘a very short part of my life, but it’s chiefly what I’m remembered for.’

Sometimes he fretted that he was so closely linked to the role of Manuel that directors were deterred from casting him, though he admitted that turning down the part of grumpy Victor Meldrew in One Foot In The Grave was his own fault: the first few scripts had not impressed him. Later, as actor Richard Wilson made the character his own, Sachs could only look on with regret.

Instead, he would revive Manuel for spin-offs, for the right price — for example, releasing a Spanish version of the Joe Dolce song novelty Shaddap You Face. Once, also, after booking his family into a swanky hotel in Bath, he agreed to play the blundering waiter in the restaurant one night. ‘We got an amazing reduction,’ he said happily.

Tragically, it was a scandal with one of his grandchildren, Georgina Baillie, that marred his final years.

He would say, ruefully: ‘I certainly never thought I’d give my name to a scandal: Sachsgate.’