Actor Dennis Waterman said his Minder co-star George Cole was a “wonderful man” with whom he “laughed all day, every day”.
Cole, who died yesterday at the age of 90, had a showbusiness career spanning 70 years.
He is best remembered for his portrayal of small-time wheeler dealer and crook Arthur Daley in the TV show Minder, alongside his likeable bodyguard Terry McCann, played by Waterman.
He died on Wednesday in hospital with his family at his side after a short illness.
Waterman (67) said: “I’m so grateful to have been a friend of this wonderful man. We worked together for many years and my boast is that we laughed all day every day.”
Minder, which ran from 1979 to 1994, brought west London’s criminal underworld into the living rooms of millions of homes.
With ‘Arfur’ Daley spending each episode munching on cigars as he hatched another scheme to get rich quick, his long-suffering bodyguard McCann watching over his every step to shield him from the police, and fans always wondering who ‘Er Indoors really was.
Born in 1925 Cole, who was adopted as a baby and grew up in Morden, south London, began his career in musical theatre when he left school before getting his break in films in the 1940s.
He appeared in the 1943 film The Demi-Paradise opposite Laurence Olivier and in Olivier’s film version of Henry V the following year, before serving with the Royal Air Force from 1944 to 1947.
His role as the spiv Flash Harry in four of the St Trinian’s films in the 1950s and 60s proved an early prototype for his Arthur Daley character, and he played Flavius in the 1963 epic Cleopatra, opposite Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison.
