Richard O’Sullivan, the crooked-smiling leading man of British comedy whose flatshare farce “Man About the House” became a touchstone of 1970s television, died on September 4, 2026, at 82.
He died shortly after 6 a.m. local time with his close family around him, according to the charity, at Brinsworth House in Twickenham, London, a home the Royal Variety Charity runs for retired performers. He had moved there after a stroke in 2003. No cause of death has been given, and no funeral arrangements have been announced.
In a statement, Giles Cooper, life-president of the Royal Variety, said the actor had brought “pure warmth, effortless wit, and unforgettable joy into millions of living rooms.” He added: “He will be sorely missed by us all at the Royal Variety Charity.”
A tribute also came from his son, James O’Sullivan. “My dad was as funny and charming in real life as he appeared on our TV screens over the years,” James O’Sullivan said. He said that much of his father’s work came before he was born, but the repeats ran so frequently that he could see for himself the talent that had earned the actor such affection. His father was a doting grandfather and a wonderful dad, he said, and he would miss him dearly.
From Child Actor to Leading Man
O’Sullivan was born in Chiswick, west London, on May 7, 1944, and was already a working professional by the age of eight, debuting on screen in the 1953 film “The Yellow Balloon.” In 1956 came “Raiders of the River,” the first serial the Children’s Film Foundation ever produced, and that same year Sir Peter Hall cast him in a staging of “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” The venue was the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, a house renamed the Royal Shakespeare Theatre five years afterwards.
Teenage parts came next. In the 1961 social drama “Spare the Rod” he played a defiant final-year pupil opposite Max Bygraves and Donald Pleasence. He made two films with singer Sir Cliff Richard, “The Young Ones” in 1961 and “Wonderful Life” in 1964, and in 1963 he appeared as Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII in the epic “Cleopatra,” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Comedy had become his direction by the late 1960s. His credits from those years include “The Ronnie Barker Playhouse” in 1968, “The Galton and Simpson Comedy” the following year, and the medical sitcom “Doctor at Large.”
The Flatshare That Pushed Boundaries
“Man About the House,” which ran for six series on ITV from 1973 to 1976, made him a fixture of British television. Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke wrote it, casting O’Sullivan as student chef Robin Tripp, who shared his London flat with two unattached women: Paula Wilcox as Chrissy and Sally Thomsett as Jo.
The setup was a gamble by the standards of the day, one of the first shows to house a man with two women who were single. What made it risky was not the arrangement itself but the sexual inference it invited — a reading that could have seen the series written off as unfit for an evening slot.
The writers made that risk the engine of the comedy. The landlord downstairs, George Roper — played by Brian Murphy, with Yootha Joyce as his wife, Mildred — was fobbed off by Chrissy, who told him their flatmate was gay to head off any objections. Robin played along, and the fiction kept the show comfortably pre-watershed. The Ropers proved popular enough with viewers to earn a spin-off of their own.
Robin Tripp carried O’Sullivan into a second hit as well. “Robin’s Nest” aired for six series between 1977 and 1981, the character having qualified as a chef and set up home with his girlfriend, Vicky, played by Tessa Wyatt; her father, played by Tony Britton, went into business with him. The role was also the template for actor John Ritter’s Jack Tripper in ABC’s “Three’s Company,” a remake of “Man About the House.”
Highwaymen, Widowers and Golf
He traded the kitchen for the saddle between 1979 and 1982, playing the 18th-century highwayman in the title role of ITV’s period adventure “Dick Turpin.” Sitcom claimed him again with “Me and My Girl,” a series that ran from 1984 to 1988. Tim Brooke-Taylor, Joanne Ridley and Joan Sanderson appeared alongside him as he played a widower raising an adolescent daughter.
“Trouble in Mind” gave him a starring role in 1991, playing a married psychiatrist in the grip of a mid-life crisis. His later credits included an appearance on “Noel’s House Party” and a starring role in “Holed,” a 1996 television satire set around a suburban golf club, which turned out to be his last acting job.
Later Years at Brinsworth House
On October 19, 2021, O’Sullivan made one of his last public appearances on the Brinsworth House lawn, planting a cherry tree with his friend and fellow resident Mike Yarwood. The planting marked Queen Elizabeth II’s Green Canopy initiative, launched in the run-up to her Jubilee a year later.
Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, met him and other former stage and screen performers during a festive visit to the home in December 2018. He had a cup of tea in the residents’ bar as the Duchess was shown in. She asked whether he missed acting; he told her he did not.
The Brinsworth House staff drew thanks in his son’s statement too, for the love, kindness and care they had given across those 23 years; the team, he said, would always hold a special place in his heart.
Two marriages ended in divorce for O’Sullivan, the second of them in 1994. He had wed Diana Terry in 1971 and Christine Smart in the late 1980s. He was in a relationship with Sally Thomsett, his “Man About the House” co-star, from 1973 to 1976, and with Tessa Wyatt, who played Vicky opposite him in “Robin’s Nest,” from 1978 to 1985. Wyatt is James’ mother. Those he leaves behind include James, his daughter-in-law, Kate, his grandchildren, Nancy and Freddie, and his brother, John. The family has requested privacy, and it has relayed its gratitude to the actor’s fans, whose support, the charity said, meant so much to him during a long and happy life.
