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Comedian Charlie Drake has died at the age of 81 following a long illness caused by two strokes.
Drake starred in a string of hit TV shows and films during the 1960s and 1970s and had a pop hit with the comic song My Boomerang Won't Come Back.
"Charlie Drake perhaps was the last of the great slapstick comedians, who combined both verbal humour with knockabout comedy," said his manager Laurie Mansfield. "His timing was acknowledged by everybody as being the very best and his passing is a great personal loss for me. He was a great comic talent."
Asked about Drake's personal qualities, Mansfield said: "He was probably the most stubborn man I ever met. He knew what he wanted and would not accept compromise."
Mansfield told how Drake once walked out of America's Ed Sullivan Show and never worked in the country again, because producers would not allow him to do a routine the way he wanted.
