{"id":322658,"date":"2025-08-06T14:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T14:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/322658\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T14:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T14:01:15","slug":"george-and-mildred-star-norman-eshley-dies-aged-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/322658\/","title":{"rendered":"George And Mildred star Norman Eshley dies aged 80"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>His agent described him as a &#8220;warm, kind and grounded man with a great voice&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35 __className_0e0312\">Hannah Roberts PA Entertainment Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>13:32, 06 Aug 2025Updated 13:56, 06 Aug 2025<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Norman-Eshley-has-died-at-the-age-of-80-Rachel-EshleyPA.jpg\" alt=\"Norman Eshley has died at the age of 80 (Rachel Eshley\/PA)\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Norman Eshley has died at the age of 80 (Image: Rachel Eshley\/PA)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">George And Mildred star Norman Eshley has died at the age of 80, his agent said. The Bristol-born <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bristolpost.co.uk\/news\/celebs-tv\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">actor <\/a>and writer, who had been living with cancer, died on August 2 at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">His wife Rachel Eshley was by his side, his agent Thomas Bowington told the PA news agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Mr Bowington said: &#8220;It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of our client <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bristolpost.co.uk\/news\/celebs-tv\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">actor <\/a>Norman Eshley. A warm, kind and grounded man with a great voice that I will miss not hearing over the phone again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">His wife Rachel said: &#8220;Although our time together wasn&#8217;t long enough I will be forever grateful for the wonderful times we shared. He was my husband and best friend and my heart will always be with him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Eshley was educated at Bristol Grammar School and completed his training as an actor at <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bristolpost.co.uk\/all-about\/bristol-old-vic\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Bristol Old Vic <\/a>Theatre School. Born in Bristol on May 30 1945, Eshley began his career in Shakespearian plays, later performing in West End productions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">He made his film debut in Orson Welles 1968 drama The Immortal Story and featured in TV shows including Canterbury Tales, an adaptation of Chaucer&#8217;s famous stories, and Warship, which followed life in the Royal Navy aboard fictional ship HMS Hero.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">He became most known, however, for playing snobbish neighbour Jeffrey Fourmile in the popular <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bristolpost.co.uk\/all-about\/itv\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">ITV<\/a> sitcom George And Mildred, starring opposite Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">In later years, he turned his hand to writing and co-authored a sequel to Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist, called The Dreamtime Of The Artful Dodger, which re-imagined the life of the character after his transportation to Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His agent described him as a &#8220;warm, kind and grounded man with a great voice&#8221; Hannah Roberts PA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[17542,381,28103,748,393,4884,208,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-322658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-armed-forces","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-bristol-old-vic","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-itv","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114982190133195271","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}