ANT and Dec have led tributes to Bingley actor Rodney Bewes, who has died days before his 79th birthday.
He was best known as Bob Ferris in much-loved sitcom The Likely Lads, but got his break playing Arthur, Billy’s pal, in John Schlesinger’s 1963 film Billy Liar, shot in Bradford. 
Ant and Dec who worked with Mr Bewes during a remake of The Likely Lads in the Noughties, described him on Twitter as “a fine comic actor”.
Born on November 27, 1938, Rodney Bewes lived in Bingley until the age of six. “I was a sickly child and our doctor said I’d be better off ‘down south’ so we moved to Luton. I’m proud of being from Yorkshire though, it’s in my blood,” he told the Telegraph & Argus in an interview in 2013. Confined to his bed as a child with severe asthma, he made theatres out of old shoeboxes and put on little plays to pass the time. 
He went on to become an actor, after writing to the BBC when he heard of a search for schoolboys to be in Billy Bunter. After RADA he appeared in such TV dramas as Z Cars and Dr Who and was Basil Brush’s first sidekick, Mr Rodney. 
Then came Billy Liar. “I was friends with Tom Courtenay and when I read his script I wrote to the casting lady,” Mr Bewes told the T&A. “John Schlesinger filmed Tom and I talking; we were sharing a house at the time so we just chatted about having steak and chips for tea. I loved filming in Bradford. We filmed outside the Midland Hotel and a man shouted, ‘You’re Horace Bewes’s son’,” he added, also recalling the time he and Courtenay were scolded by a passer-by for dancing in front of the city’s war memorial. 
Billy Liar brought Mr Bewes to the attention of producers of The Likely Lads. “They’d seen James Bolam in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and me in Billy Liar. That was my break, “ said Mr Bewes. One of the first sitcoms set in the north east, it was watched by 27 million people at its peak. Writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais penned three series, with 20 episodes broadcast between 1964 and 1966. The BBC revived the hit comedy in 1973.
“Essentially it was about friendship,” said Mr Bewes. “It was a golden age for actors and writers back then. I wrote the sitcom Dear Mother…Love Albert and was given the go-ahead after one lunch meeting. These days it takes 15 men in suits to make a decision.” 
While he and Bolam played best pals, the actors fell out off-screen. In his 2005 autobiography, Mr Bewes attributed the breakdown in their relationship to a row over a newspaper article.
In more recent years Mr Bewes brought one-man shows to Bradford Playhouse and Bingley Arts Centre. His second wife, Daphne, died in 2015. He is survived by his four children and two grandchildren.