So the great Frank Butcher is dead, or brown bread as he would say himself. For many years the comedian and singer Mike Reid played the second hand car salesman Frank Butcher in the BBC soap "Eastenders" (Better known as Deadenders after the characteristics of the denziens of Albert Square) along the way doing a passable imitation of a stand up philosopher. The actor and comedian, best known for playing Frank Butcher in the BBC1 soap, died at the age of 67 after suffering a massive heart attack in Marbella in Spain, where he lived.
Reid, who was born in Hackney in 1940, began his career in the Sixties as a stuntman, including working as a double for Roger Moore in The Saint. He went on to become a stand-up comic, and one of the original stars of Seventies TV series The Comedians. Later that decade he hosted ITV children's quiz show Runaround - fondly remembered for its incomprehensible rules and the incongruity of Reid as presenter.
It was not until 1987 that his big break came when he secured the part of Frank Butcher in EastEnders. Pam St Clements, who played Reid's on-screen wife Pat, said: "It has come as a terrible shock. Somebody larger than life as Mike, as a person and character, seemed indestructible." One of the soap's most memorable moments was when Frank, in a bid to win Pat back, turned up on her doorstep wearing nothing but a flashing dickie bow.
His key phrase was:
"Look them in the eye, my son, and be sincere. If you can fake that you have it made!"
Have truer words ever been spoken?
Farewell, me ol' China!
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