Charlie Drake

Charlie Drake was an English comedian actor writer and singer best known for his catchphrase Hello My darlings With his small stature 5 ft 1 in or 155 cm tall curly red hair and liking for slapstick he was a popular comedian with children in his early years performing with Jack Edwardes in the double act Mick and Montmorency on childrens TV He subsequently made the break into primetime TV and critical and commercial acclaim with his solo show Drakes Progress 19551957 He was best known for his series The Worker 196570 in which he played a perpetually unemployed labourer who in every episode was dispatched to a new job by the everfrustrated clerk at the local labour exchange In the sixties Drake made the transition to cinema making several comedy films By the 1980s Drake reinvented himself as a straight actor including a memorable performance as Smallweed in the 1985 BBC adaptation of Bleak House and playing Nagg in Samuel Becketts Endgame in 1989 He suffered a series of strokes in 1995 and retired passing away in 2006 at the age of 81