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Sitcom star of the 1970s and 80s who appeared in Man About the House, Robin’s Nest, and Me and My Girl
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Television & radio — Anthony Hayward
Richard O’Sullivan, who has died aged 82, went from being a cherubic child actor in the 1950s to the star of 70s television sitcoms. He found his first big role in Man About the House (1973-76) as Robin Tripp, sharing a flat in Earl’s Court, London, with two female friends, Chrissy (Paula Wilcox) and Jo (Sally Thomsett) – a formula presented as daring at the time.
The show, Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer ’s creation, attempted to turn 1970s male-female stereotypes on their head – albeit in the name of comedy – by having Robin, a trainee chef, taking charge in the kitchen. However, he was barred from his flatmates’ bedrooms and the three of them had to deal with their mean-spirited landlord, George Roper ( Brian Murphy ), and his wife, Mildred (Yootha Joyce).
Man About the House featured mostly end-of-the-pier humour, which was still popular with audiences to the extent that it spawned a 1974 film of the same title and a US television re-make, Three’s Company, plus two spin-off series – George and Mildred, starring Murphy and Joyce, and Robin’s Nest (1977-81), which featured O’Sullivan’s character running a bistro.
In Robin’s Nest, Robin lives with his girlfriend, Vicky (Tessa Wyatt), above the bistro, which he runs in partnership with Vicky’s father, James Nicholls ( Tony Britton ), who also waits on tables and has a wandering eye following the break-up of his marriage. They are helped by an Irish washer-up, Albert Riddle ( David Kelly ), who is hampered by the fact that he has only one arm. Audiences of up to 19 million meant the programme ran to six series. O’Sullivan also wrote the theme tune.
Although unmarried couples had been featured in television dramas, this was the first time one had been portrayed in a sitcom – and the scripts were vetted by the IBA, ITV’s regulator. Eventually, Robin and Vicky married.
In real life O’Sullivan and Wyatt also formed a relationship, and they made headlines when Wyatt left her husband, the DJ Tony Blackburn, to live with O’Sullivan in 1978, while the sitcom was still running. The story gained extra traction through Blackburn’s venting his heartbreak on air for months afterwards. The relationship ended after seven years.
During that time, O’Sullivan found further professional success when he was cast against type in the title role of Dick Turpin (1979-82). He played the highwayman as a lovable rascal and showed his versatility with some deft swordplay and general ribaldry.
He then returned to sitcom to play Simon Harrap, an advertising executive and irresponsible widower bringing up his teenage daughter, Samantha (Joanne Ridley), in Me and My Girl (1984-88), which ran for six series.
O’Sullivan was born in Chiswick, west London, the son of John, a garage mechanic, and his wife, Ellen (nee Fleming). Keen to learn tap-dancing, he went to the Corona Stage Academy as a child and, aged eight, made his screen debut as a Sunday school boy in the film thriller The Yellow Balloon (1953).
Over the next 10 years he clocked up more than 20 cinema roles, including Trevor Howard’s kidnapped son in The Stranger’s Hand (1954), Louis XVI’s son in Dangerous Exile (1957), the leader of a gang of young saboteurs in Carry On Teacher (1959), an unjustly thrashed pupil in the school drama Spare the Rod (1961) and Ptolemy in Cleopatra (1963), with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role.
There were also three film musicals, The Young Ones (1961) and Wonderful Life (1964) with Cliff Richard and Every Day’s a Holiday (1964) with Freddie and the Dreamers (1964), as well as the Children’s Film Foundation’s first serial, Raiders of the River (1956). On television he took the title role in the BBC’s five-part adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1957).
Unlike many, O’Sullivan successfully made the transition from child to adult actor, although between jobs he earned a living as a petrol pump attendant and minicab driver. His career was kickstarted with the role of the prissy, by-the-book Dr Lawrence Bingham in two related TV comedy series, Doctor at Large (1971) and Doctor in Charge (1972-73).
He also had supporting roles in other sitcoms – the first series (1971) of Now Look Here as Keith, in conflict with Ronnie Corbett as a bachelor dominated by his mother, and Alcock and Gander (1972), as Richard Gander, the dropout student helping a widow played by Beryl Reid to run a Soho-based business offering everything from coach travel to a marriage bureau.
His last sitcom was Trouble in Mind (1991), in which he played Adam Charlesworth, a retired psychiatrist who starts a landscaping business with his wife.
At one time O’Sullivan, a Chelsea fan, regularly played for charity football teams, but he gave up after breaking his leg. In 1994 he described himself as a “hard-drinking depressive”, and his career was cut short by ill health. He suffered a stroke in 2003 and moved to Brinsworth House, an actors’ retirement home in Twickenham, south-west London.
While making Man About the House, O’Sullivan had a three-year relationship with his co-star Thomsett. Two marriages, to the model Diana Terry in 1971, and to Christine Smart, granddaughter of the circus impresario Billy Smart, in 1988, ended in divorce. He is survived by James, the son from his relationship with Wyatt.
• Richard Thomas O’Sullivan, actor, born 7 May 1944; died 4 September 2026
The show, Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer ’s creation, attempted to turn 1970s male-female stereotypes on their head – albeit in the name of comedy – by having Robin, a trainee chef, taking charge in the kitchen. However, he was barred from his flatmates’ bedrooms and the three of them had to deal with their mean-spirited landlord, George Roper ( Brian Murphy ), and his wife, Mildred (Yootha Joyce).
This report is published with credit to The Guardian. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on The Guardian →
Source: The Guardian · Anthony Hayward. Published 4 Sept 2026, 12:42 pm.
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