Obituary: John Savident, actor

Larger-than-life actor John Savident found the perfect role when he was cast as the booming-voiced Fred Elliott in British soap Coronation Street. The part of the luckless butcher suited him to a tee and allowed him to demonstrate both his perfect comic timing and his sense of pathos and drama. The Channel Islands-born actor left home with his parents in 1940, when he was 2, to avoid the looming German invasion. Although never a marquee star, Savident’s character acting skills meant he was seldom without work. He appeared in films such as A Clockwork Orange, Gandhi and Hudson Hawk, was a regular on stage, especially in musicals, and had a dizzying array of television credits. Savident was in everything from Dr Who to Yes Minister and Holby City, but it was Coro which granted Savident his signature role — and a signature catchphrase of adding the words "I say" to most sentences. Fred Elliott appeared in almost 1000 episodes of the serial before the character died in 2006. Savident himself died on February 21, aged 86. — Agencies