Published: 11:56 GMT, November 8, 2022 | Updated: 12:24 GMT, November 8, 2022
Carry On star Leslie Phillips, who caused laughter across the country, has died aged 98.
The actor – best known for his ‘Ding Dong’, ‘Well, Hello’ and ‘I Say’ slogans – had battled a long illness.
Younger fans will know his voice from the Harry Potter movies where he was the sound of the Sorting Hat.
Phillips, the star of 150 films, suffered a life-threatening stroke in 2015 and has been recovering at his home in recent years.
He would fondly remember how he would be asked by fans for generations to say his slogans “a million times.”
Mr. Phillips was best known for his ‘Ding Dong’, ‘Well, Hello’ and ‘I Say’ catchphrases during a career in which he appeared in 150 films.
Barbara Roscoe and Leslie Phillips bond during an earlier film in his career that lasts until his death at age 98
Leslie Phillips drank a glass of wine in 1975. He had suffered a massive stroke in his later years, but had struggled to recover
Still working before the stroke, the Tottenham-born film legend voiced the Sorting Hat from the Harry Potter films and acted in several British TV dramas, including the Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Revolver and Agatha Christie’s Marple.
Born on April 20, 1924, into a working-class family, he made his first film appearances as a child in the 1930s.
He is considered the only living actor to perform at Pinewood Studios in the first week after its opening in 1936.
During World War II he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1943 and transferred to the Durham Light Infantry in 1944.
but hey is dead — nearly two years after Barbara Windsor died — means only Jim Dale is left of the Carry On movies that made him a huge star.
Leslie Phillips with his wife Penelope Bartley and their daughter Caroline Elizabeth outside All Souls Church after her baptism, St John’s Wood, London, 4 May 1950
Phillips turned his back on a Hollywood career to join the Carry On cast and be with his wife Penny Bartley and their four children who were back in England.
He later revealed that he loved being “idolized” by the public, wishing people would “look beyond the lecherous twit I played.”
In one of his last interviews with The Dude in 2020, he said his slogans had followed him all his life with people constantly asking him to say them.
He said of the frequency, “Millions of times, and as for my other catchphrase, “Ding Dong!”, I couldn’t even count.
“But I’ve had a great career and I’ve been very lucky. One thing I’ve learned is that I wish I could have spent more time with my kids as they got older. ‘