Southport acting legend Kenneth Cope has sadly died aged 93.
The British actor and writer starred in a huge array of classics including starring in Carry On movies, Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, Coronation Street and Brookside.
For many years, he was a regular columnist in the Southport Visiter newspaper.
A statement from his agent said Mr Cope “passed away peacefully in his sleep” on Wednesday, with his wife and family by his side.
In Randall and Hopkirk, Mr Cope played Marty Hopkirk, a man who is murdered but returns as a ghost.
The show, first broadcast in 1969 and 1970, developed a cult following and was remade in 2000 by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
The Southport resident has enjoyed has enjoyed an incredible acting career with roles in some of the most iconic movies and TV series of all time including That Was The Week That Was, Minder, Brookside, Doctor Who, Casualty, Catweazle, Juliet Bravo, The Bill, A Touch Of Frost, Kavanagh QC and many more.
Kenneth Cope in Randall and Hopkirk Deceased
He played Subutai in the 1965 film of the life of Genghis Khan, and took leading roles in two “Carry On” films. In Carry On at Your Convenience (1971) he played Vic Spanner, the obnoxious shop steward central to the film’s trade union and industrial problems storyline and rival in the film’s romantic subplot. In Carry on Matron (1972) he took the more sympathetic role of Cyril Carter, the son of a thief who is forced to impersonate a female nurse as part of his father’s attempt to rob a maternity hospital.
In Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) he played the ghostly private eye Marty Hopkirk opposite Mike Pratt’s very much alive Jeff Randall, between 1969 and 1970.
He played Ray Hilton in Channel 4 soap opera Brookside from 1999 to 2002.
In 2008, Kenneth Cope’s Coronation Street character Jed Stone returned to the ITV soap after 42 years’ absence, appearing as part of a storyline involving property developer Tony Gordon.
The keen Evertonian lived in Southport and married actress Renny Lister, whom he had met when she worked on Coronation Street, in 1961. They have three children: Martha, Nick and Mark.
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