30/07/2013
Mel Smith dies of heart attack aged 60
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23390982
Comic actor and writer Mel Smith has died of a heart attack, aged 60, his agent has confirmed.
The British comedian - known for the sketch shows Alas Smith and Jones and Not The Nine O'Clock News - died at his home on Friday, Michael Foster said.
Smith formed a lasting partnership with co-performer Griff Rhys Jones with whom he set up the independent television company, Talkback Productions.
Rhys Jones described his friend of 35 years as a "brilliant actor".
In a statement on behalf of his wife, Pam, Mr Foster said: "Mel Smith, comedian and writer, died on Friday aged 60, from a heart attack at his home in north-west London."
An ambulance was called to Smith's home just after 09:00 BST where he was found to have died.
'A gentleman and a scholar'
Meanwhile, friends and colleagues have paid tribute to him.
"I still can't believe this has happened," said Rhys Jones.
"To everybody who ever met him, Mel was a force for life. He had a relish for it that seemed utterly inexhaustible."
He said the pair had never had an argument and "loved performing together", adding: "He inspired love and utter loyalty and he gave it in return. I will look back on the days working with him as some of the funniest times that I have ever spent."
He went on to describe Smith as a "gentleman and a scholar, a gambler and a wit".
The pair met, along with Rowan Atkinson and Pamela Stephenson, working on Not the Nine O'Clock News, which ran from 1979 to 1982.
The programme's creator, John Lloyd, told the BBC his friend had been ill for some time.
He said: "Mel did an extraordinary thing - he taught us all how to make comedy natural. He was a brilliant theatre director... Not only was he a great actor, he was a wonderful editor."
Smith and Rhys Jones together created Talkback Productions, which made a number of much-loved comedies - among them Da Ali G Show, I'm Alan Partridge and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
"What that did is produce a gigantic raft of new material," Mr Lloyd said. "That, I think, is a contribution that will never go away."
They sold the company for £62m in 2000.
Experimental psychology
Their business partner and agent at Talkback, ITV director of television Peter Fincham, said Smith had "extraordinary natural talent".
"Life was always exciting around Mel," he said. "Being funny came naturally to him, so much so that he never seemed to give it a second thought.
"Mel and Griff were one of the great comedy acts and it's hard to imagine that one of them is no longer with us."
Atkinson, who starred in Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie, directed by Smith in 1997, paid tribute to a "lovely man of whom I saw too little in his later years".
"He had a wonderfully generous and sympathetic presence both on and off screen," he said.
Other friends and colleagues took to Twitter to send their condolences, with comedian and broadcaster Stephen Fry writing: "Terrible news about my old friend Mel Smith, dead today from a heart attack. Mel lived a full life, but was kind, funny and wonderful to know."
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Comic star Mel Smith, who has died aged 60, became a household name during the 1980s when TV sketch shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones were at the height of their success.
But he was also a writer, actor and acclaimed director whose love of performing started at an early age.
The son of a bookmaker from Chiswick, west London, Smith was directing plays with friends at the age of six.
After school he studied experimental psychology at New College, Oxford.
He chose that particular college because of the lure of its dramatic society, and went on to become the drama group's president.
Smith directed productions at the Oxford Playhouse and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe festival while he was an undergraduate.
After leaving university he pursued directing, working at the Royal Court in London, before moving on to the Bristol Old Vic and the Sheffield Crucible.
But Smith was a solo act until he was introduced to Griff Rhys Jones by TV producer John Lloyd, who invited them to join the Not the Nine O'Clock News cast, along with Rowan Atkinson and Pamela Stephenson.
Their hugely successful show, which was billed as an alternative to watching the BBC's flagship news bulletin, was a series of sketches, skits and musical parodies.
Smith, Rhys Jones and Atkinson also wrote for the show, with the former two going on to set up Talkback Productions in 1981.
It became a highly successful independent production company and talent agency, responsible for hits including Da Ali G Show and Alan Partridge's Knowing Me Knowing You. The firm was sold in 2000.
The pair also found even more success with their 1984 hit sketch show, Alas Smith and Jones - its name was taken from US Western series Alias Smith and Jones.
Sketches included their trademark deadpan head-to-head chats, shot in close-up, which went on to be compared with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Dagenham Dialogues.
Smith played a know-it-all while Rhys Jones took on a dim-witted persona while they engaged in discussions on a myriad of topics.
Over the next 14 years, there were a total of 10 series of the show.
The pair also made films and radio programmes together, and performed in plays, clip shows and Christmas specials.
Their charity work included introducing Queen at 1985's Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium.
Although the last series of the eventually renamed Smith and Jones series aired in 1998, the pair continued to work together, and in 2005 they collaborated on The Alas Smith and Jones Sketchbook, a showcase of their past shows.
Smith's directing work was also a key part of his career, and his work included Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie, which starred Atkinson, and Richard Curtis' romantic comedy The Tall Guy, starring Emma Thompson and Jeff Goldblum.
Acting roles included Babylon in 1980, the 1987 hit The Princess Bride and Sir Toby Belch in Trevor Nunn's 1996 production of Twelfth Night.
He drew headlines in 2006 when he threatened to flout the ban on smoking in enclosed spaces in order to play a cigar-puffing Winston Churchill at the Edinburgh Fringe.
In the end, Smith didn't light his cigar after a visit to the theatre from an environmental health officer.
Smith became known to a whole new generation in Raymond Briggs' animated Father Christmas in 1991, in which he sang the song Another Bloomin' Christmas in the title role.
He also teamed up with singer Kim Wilde in 1987 for the Comic Relief song Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, which reached the top five in the singles' chart.
And his vocal talents had an outing in 1981 with the single Mel Smith's Greatest Hits, produced by Queen's Roger Taylor, who featured on instrumentation and backing vocals.
Smith went on to sing and act on stage in 2007, making his West End debut in the hit musical Hairspray as Wilbur Turnblad, alongside Michael Ball as Edna Turnblad.
Last year Smith worked with Rhys Jones once more on a sketch show for BBC One.
Smith was a Hollywood director as well as a comic writer, actor and singer.
He leaves wife, Pam, with whom he lived in north west London.
