Rik Mayall, who played the title role in the 1991 cult classic Drop Dead Fred, died Monday, June 9, at his home in London, a spokesman for his management company confirmed. He was 56. No cause of death was immediately available.
"We are all deeply saddened by this news, from the enormous number of fans Rik had to those who worked with him and knew him as a man as well as a fine actor," Brunskill Management's Roger Davidson said. "He touched many lives, and always for the better."
Mayall was best known in the U.S. for his role in Drop Dead Fred, opposite Carrie Fisher and Phoebe Cates, but he had a string of other successes in the U.K. Back in the 1980s, he appeared in Blackadder, The New Statesman, and The Young Ones, a sitcom he co-created with Lise Mayer.
He was also a member of The Comic Strip, a group of British comedians who became household names in the U.K. thanks to their TV series The Comic Strip Presents…
Mayall, who suffered seizures after a near-fatal quad bike accident in 1998, is survived by his wife, Barbara, and their three children.
