Geoffrey Hughes

Geoffrey Hughes DL (2 February 1944 – 27 July 2012) was an English actor. Hughes provided the voice of Paul McCartney in the animated film Yellow Submarine (1968), and rose to fame for portraying much-loved bin man Eddie Yeats in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street from 1974 to 1983, making a return to the show in 1987. He is best known, however, for playing loveable slob Onslow in the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances (1990–1995) and later appeared in the sitcom The Royle Family, playing the part of 'Twiggy' (1998–2000), reprising his role for the specials in 2006 and 2008. From 2001 to 2005 he played Vernon Scripps, conman and loveable rogue, in the ITV police drama Heartbeat, taking over as the show's main loveable rogue from Bill Maynard's Claude Greengrass, and returning to the show briefly in 2007 after the character was thought dead by the other villagers. Hughes was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the 1990s, and in 2010 he suffered a cancer relapse which led him to retire from acting. He died from the illness, aged 68, in 2012.

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