Cause of death Heart attack Role Actor Name Lennard Pearce | Years active 1964–1984 Occupation Actor | |
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Television Only Fools and Horses (1981–84) (His death) Similar People Died 15 December 1984 (aged 69) Archway, London, England | ||
Lennard Pearce (9 February 1915 – 15 December 1984) was an English actor who worked mostly in the theatre, but also appeared in British television programmes. He landed his best remembered television role during the last years of his life, starring as Grandad in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses from its beginning in September 1981 until he died in December 1984.
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Lennard pearce
Theatre
Pearce studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), in London and performed for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) during World War II. In the early 1960s, he understudied for Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Doolittle in the original West End production of My Fair Lady. After 1965, he appeared in many plays at the National Theatre including Much Ado About Nothing and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. He worked with both Laurence Olivier and Anthony Hopkins on stage. In 1966, Pearce starred in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, alongside David Jason, but the two men didn't meet again until 15 years later.
In 1975, Pearce played the Owl in a theatre adaptation of Winnie the Pooh at the Phoenix Theatre, in London, and two years later, in 1977, Mr Witherspoon in Arsenic and Old Lace at the Westminster Theatre. He was also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Television
Pearce starred as Grandad in the first 23 episodes of the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses between 1981 and 1983, a role with which he is most closely associated. His other work includes Dixon of Dock Green (1965), Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1967), Sykes (1972) and Coronation Street in May 1969 and April 1977, along with The Wednesday Play ("Cathy Come Home", 1966). Pearce played a role in Crown Court broadcast in February 1984.
Pearce also appeared in an episode of Minder named "The Balance of Power", which was shown on Halloween in 1984, along with playing Mr Coles in three episodes of Shroud for a Nightingale in March 1984. Coincidentally, the man who replaced Pearce as the senior member of the Trotter family, Buster Merryfield, also appeared in two episodes of the same series. Pearce's last TV appearance was on BBC 1's Children in Need, on 23 November 1984
Health problems and death
In 1980, Pearce was in a play at the Bristol Old Vic, when he kept losing balance and repeatedly falling asleep. He was diagnosed as having critical hypertension, and put on seven different tablets for it, taking these for the rest of his life. On 12 December 1984, Pearce suffered a heart attack. He was rushed to the Whittington Hospital, admitted, and his condition improved. Two days later, Only Fools and Horses scriptwriter John Sullivan visited him, and assured Pearce that his place in the programme would be open for him when he recovered. However, Pearce suffered a second heart attack, and died instantly, on the night of 15 December 1984 at the age of 69. Sullivan was phoned the following morning to be told the news, and he broke it to Pearce's Only Fools and Horses co-stars David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, who were devastated by Pearce's sudden death as well as the entire crew.
When Pearce died, production was under way of the Only Fools and Horses episode "Hole in One". Scenes he had filmed on location prior to his death were re-shot with Buster Merryfield as the replacement character Uncle Albert, and the episode was put back in the series. The episode "Strained Relations" begins in the wake of the death of the character Pearce had played.