Moldgreeen-born actor Gorden Kaye was one of the most familiar faces on TV and became a household name with the runaway success of 80s comedy Allo Allo.

Gorden, who died in a care home aged 75, battled back against a horrific head injury in 1990 to once more star in the sitcom which gave him worldwide fame. He appeared in more than 80 episodes of the sitcom, as well as reprising the role 1,200 times in the stage adaptation.

His last screen role was in BBC sketch show Revolver in 2004.

Gorden – who first appeared on TV in Coronation Street when it was transformed from black and white to colour in 1969 – quite rightly regards his portrayal of comic cafe owner Rene Artois as a milestone in his career.

But he also conceded it could also be seen as a millstone as it tends to shroud his other achievements.

These include years as a respected stage actor and his membership of The Grand Order of Water Rats, the world’s oldest showbusiness charity which includes big celebrity names among its fund-raising ranks.

He was elected King Rat for 1999 after being voted to the top post by its members and he initiated Sir John Mills into the Water Rats when the veteran actor was a sprightly 91.

The Rats use their pulling power among celebrities to stage fund-raising shows and concerts.

Gorden, who received an Examiner Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, was born at the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital in Huddersfield on April 7, 1941.

Examiner Community Awards, 2005: Gorden Kaye receives his Lifetime Achievement award
Examiner Community Awards, 2005: Gorden Kaye receives his Lifetime Achievement award

He was the only child of parents Harold and Gracie. His mum was 42 when he was born.

“They took one look at me and said `no more’,” he quipped.

His dad was a lorry driver for the former Huddersfield General Carrying Company and Gorden remembers sitting alongside him in the cab for trips to cities as far away as Hull and Liverpool.

The family lived at Brook Street in Moldgreen, opposite a boarding house run by Mrs Clark.

She took in actors and footballers and Gorden remembered a young Denis Law staying there.

He attended Moldgreen County School and then Almondbury Grammar School, which later became King James’.

his schooldays acting was limited to a brief and according to The Old Almondburians’ Society, “somewhat inglorious appearance as Lord Scroop, Earl of Masham in the 1956 production of Henry V.”

In the early 1960s he became involved in hospital radio with Examiner jazz specialist Laurie Stead and interviewed Ken Dodd and then the Beatles when they famously played the former Ritz in 1963.

“I caught them between two shows and the last thing they probably wanted to see was me holding a microphone,” he later said.

“But they were good fun and readily agreed to record Christmas messages for our festive special later in the year.”

A trip to Bradford Playhouse inspired him to pursue acting and he was voted the top actor in a festival of plays by playwright Alan Ayckbourn in the city.

Gorden never looked back.

(left to right) Francesca Gonshaw, Gordon Kaye and Vicki Michelle of British sitcom 'Allo 'Allo! on November 14, 1984
(left to right) Francesca Gonshaw, Gordon Kaye and Vicki Michelle of British sitcom 'Allo 'Allo! on November 14, 1984

He asked Alan Ayckbourn how to get into the profession and was directed to the Octagon Theatre in Bolton. The audition was, to say the least, unusual.

Gorden recited a piece from a play called Next Time I’ll Sing To You – a sentence which lasted way over a page – and the artistic director, Robin Pemberton Billing, found it so funny he fell off his chair laughing.

While at Bolton Gorden was discovered by Coronation Street’s Pat Phoenix, who played legendary character Elsie Tanner, and she got him an eight-month contract spanning 53 episodes playing her nephew, Bernard, in 1969 and 1970.

Two memories stood out for Gorden.

The programme switched from black and white to colour while he was there. All the scenery needed redoing.

And he was the first man to appear in drag in a soap opera, dressing up as a nurse to wheel Ray Langton down the street in a wheelchair.

After stage shows and brief TV appearances in the 70s – including comedies It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Are You Being Served? – his big break came in 1982 with the pilot for Allo Allo, after writer David Crofts approached Gorden’s agent.

“When I heard the character was called Rene my first thought was `oh my God, a female impersonator’,” he said. “But I was wrong and the laughs leapt off every page.”

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The pilot became a long- running TV series until 1992 and a stage show which the cast took from London to Australia.

Gorden was lucky to survive a horrific accident in January 1990 during a storm.

He was driving in Hounslow when fierce winds sent a slice of wood from a billboard smashing through his car windscreen and left it embedded in Gorden’s forehead.

An off-duty nurse saved his life.

She made sure no-one removed the wood and the police rushed him to hospital where it was removed by surgeons.

It left him with a nasty scar, but there was clearly no lasting damage to his sense of humour.

“A while later I was standing at Blackpool looking at a poster promoting the stage show of Allo, Allo there,” he said.

“A couple came up and she said to her husband `Is that the Rene bloke from the telly?’ Her husband replied `No, it can’t be him. He’s had his head off.”’