Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers.
Sachs had a long career in acting and voice-over work for television, film and radio. He was successful well into his eighties, with roles in numerous films such as Quartet, and as Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.
Sachs was born on 7 April 1930 in Berlin, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany, the son of Katharina (née Schrott-Fiecht), a librarian, and Hans Emil Sachs, an insurance broker. His father was Jewish and his mother was Lutheran, with Austrian ancestry. The family moved to Britain in 1938 to escape the Nazis. They settled in north London, and he lived in Kilburn for the rest of his life.
In the late 1950s, while still studying shipping management at college, Sachs worked on radio productions, including Private Dreams and Public Nightmares by Frederick Bradnum, an early experimental programme made by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Sachs's first film appearance was as a schoolboy in Hue and Cry, Ealing comedies' first film in 1947. He began in acting with repertory theatre and made his West End debut as Grobchick in the 1958 production of the Whitehall farce Simple Spymen. He made his screen debut in 1959 in the film The Night We Dropped a Clanger. He then appeared in numerous television series throughout the 1960s, including some appearances in ITC productions such as The Saint (1962) and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969).
Sachs is best known for portraying Manuel, the Spanish waiter in the critically acclaimed sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), a role for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award (the award went to co-star John Cleese). He claimed in 1981 that Manuel was "really a very small part. In fact there was only one episode of Fawlty Towers – the one with the hamster – in which I had anything much to do."
Sachs recorded three singles in character as Manuel; the first was "Manuel's Good Food Guide" in 1977, in which he appeared, in character, on the cover. Sachs was co-author of the tracks. This was followed in 1979 by "O Cheryl" with "Ode to England" on the B side, under the name "Manuel and Los Por Favors". Sachs shares the writing credits for the B side with "B. Wade", who also wrote the A side. In 1981, at the urging of Elton John, "Manuel" released a cover version of Joe Dolce's worldwide hit "Shaddap You Face", with "Waiter, there's a Flea in my Soup" on the B side. When finally released it reached 138 in the UK Chart. Dolce prohibited Sachs from releasing his version until the original had been a hit.
He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1980, when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while making a personal appearance as Manuel at the HMV store on London's Oxford Street.
Sachs, who had himself experienced life as a 'foreigner' in Britain, denied allegations that the character was based on racist stereotypes, arguing that Manuel could have been any 'foreign' worker.
During the shooting of the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans", Sachs was left with second degree acid burns due to a fire stunt. He was also hit with a faulty prop on the set of the show by Cleese and suffered a severe headache.
In 2008, Sachs reprised the role of Manuel with Cleese for a Prince's Trust comedy performance.
Sachs was frequently heard as a narrator of television and radio documentaries, including all five series of BBC's BAFTA Award-winning business television series Troubleshooter presented by Sir John Harvey-Jones and ITV's ...from Hell series. He also narrated several audio books, including C. S. Lewis's Narnia series and Alexander McCall Smith's first online book, Corduroy Mansions, as well as two audiobooks of the popular children's TV series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends "Thomas and the Tiger" and "Thomas and the Dinosaur". He provided the voice of Puzzle the Donkey in the Focus on the Family production of The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis. In 2000, Sachs narrated the spoof documentary series That Peter Kay Thing. He also narrated the documentary series Eyewitness, based on the children's books of the same name.
Sachs performed all the voices in the English-language version of Jan Švankmajer's 1994 film Faust. He also did voices for children's animation, including William's Wish Wellingtons, Starhill Ponies, The Gingerbread Man, Little Grey Rabbit, The Forgotten Toys, Asterix and the Big Fight. and the horse in the English-language version of 1970's cult TV show Monkey.
Roles for radio include G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, 1984–1986, Dr. John Watson in four series of original Sherlock Holmes stories for BBC Radio 4, Jeeves in The Code of the Woosters, Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo on BBC Radio 7's "Young Classics" series, Snowy in The Adventures of Tintin, and Tooley in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
Although no other role gained him the same attention as Manuel, Sachs continued to star in a range of productions, both comedic and dramatic. In a reversal of his Fawlty Towers role, he was the hotel manager Don Carlos Bernardo in the 1977 Are You Being Served? movie, In addition he also played the recurring character of Barrister Jeremy Nisbett Q.C. in the Granada Television daytime series, Crown Court.
In 1980, Sachs starred in the title role of a four-part BBC adaptation of H. G. Wells's The History of Mr Polly. The following year, he portrayed a French Revolutionary in Mel Brooks's History of the World, Part I.
1988 saw Sachs and his wife Melody returning to Berlin to make a three-part BBC documentary following his early life in the city, comparing it with the divided Berlin of 1988. An excerpt exists in the BBC Archive.
In 1990, he appeared as a contestant on Cluedo, facing off against fellow actor Keith Barron.