Paul Glynn
Tradition reporter
Getty Pictures
Singer and actor Mike Berry, who was once the closing surviving major solid member of sitcom Are You Being Served?, has died on the age of 82.
Berry performed Mr Spooner within the TV display within the Eighties, and likewise had two most sensible 10 hit singles – Do not You Suppose It is Time in 1963 and The Sunshine of Your Smile in 1980.
His supervisor and pal Peter Stockton showed the scoop of his loss of life, pronouncing the “mythical” entertainer died “peacefully this morning, his members of the family through his bedside”.
“Mike was once an ideal, extremely proficient performer whose occupation spanned 64 years,” he mentioned.
Berry (left) seemed with John Inman in Are You Being Served? in 1985
Berry’s performing destroy got here in kids’s TV display Worzel Gummidge, enjoying Mr Peters from 1979-81 earlier than returning within the 2019 quick tribute Scatterbrook Days.
However he essentially noticed himself as a singer.
Within the Sixties, he toured with the pre-fame Beatles and Rolling Stones, and had chart luck along with his band The Outlaws, whose early contributors integrated Deep Red’s Ritchie Blackmore and Chas Hodges of Chas & Dave.
Do not You Suppose It is Time, produced through Joe Meek, reached quantity six, whilst additionally they reached the highest 40 with Tribute to Friend Holly and My Little Child within the 60s.
Berry returned to the highest 10 in 1980 with The Sunshine of Your Smile, in the beginning written in 1913.
‘Excellent skill’
Hodges died in 2018, however a commentary launched on behalf of Chas & Dave on Friday learn: “We are stunned and saddened to listen to of the passing of our excellent pal Mike Berry.
“Mike, after all, went all of the long ago with Chas as singer with The Outlaws having a large number of hits in combination.
“They teamed up once more in 1980 to have every other large hit with Mike’s Sunshine of Your Smile unmarried – which Chas organized and produced.
“Our ideas are with Mike’s circle of relatives at this extremely unhappy time.”
Talking of his pal’s numerous showbiz occupation, which integrated showing in Willy Russell’s play One For The Highway, Stockton referred to as Berry “a talented actor”.
He famous that his most up-to-date gig, on the Part Moon pub in Putney, west London, in February, were a sell-out, which was once “testimony to his excellent skill”.
In 2016, Berry was once persuaded to participate in BBC skill display The Voice, impressing judges Will I.Am, Boy George, Paloma Religion and Ricky Wilson with a rendition of Friend Holly’s observe True Love Tactics.
He’s survived through his spouse Susan and their daughter and son.
