Ernie Wise: Last News

TV star Patricia Brake has sadly died at the age of 79 after a long battle with cancer, her family has said.

Actress Patricia Brake has died after a long cancer battle, it has been announced. The 79-year-old will probably be best known for playing Ronnie Barker's on-screen daughter in sitcom Porridge.

BBC and ITV series Morecambe and Wise, died on this day in 1999 (March 21).The beloved star died at the age of 73 following a major heart operation - just over 15 years after the loss of his comedy partner Eric Morecambe.Together he and Eric Morecambe brought sunshine into the lives of of TV viewers, and inspired an entire generation of comedy stars including Eddie Izzard and Ben Miller.Their comedy series is now legendary, and to pay tribute to Ernie Wise, Daily Star has taken a look at some behind the scenes secrets of the famous Morecambe and Wise show.Although Morecambe and Wise were undoubtedly the stars of the show on screen, part of their comedy owed a lot to the third star behind the scenes - writer Eddie Braben.Eddie wrote a lot of the classic sketches for the series, including Eric performing as The Duke Of Wellington alongside Vanessa Redgrave.He was also the person to come up with the famous bedroom sketches, where Eric and Ernie would share a double bed, followed by some of the show's most iconic lines.His long running partnership and friendship with the comedy duo was also retold in the TV film Eric, Ernie and Me in 2017, which starred Wild at Heart and Ballykissangel actor Stephen Tompkinson as the famous writer.Together, the writing of Eddie Braben and the talent of Eric and Ernie was a match made in comedy heaven - and one that generations of audiences still love today.One of the regularly occurring jokes on the Morecambe and Wise show was about entertainer and singer Des O'Connor and his music.However away from the TV screens, Des O' Connor was good friends with the comedy duo.In his autobiography, Bananas Can't Fly, Des explained that he had been friends with Eric and Ernie for many years, explaining

Paddy McGuinness used to flog Viagra to make extra cash before he found fame. The Top Gear and Question Of Sport host confessed that he tapped up OAPs to get his hands on the blue pills.

The comedy legends made the comments during an interview with University of East Anglia's TV station, Nexus, 48 years ago.At the time, Morecambe and Wise were backstage at Norwich's Theatre Royal during a four-show run.The clip of the pair was put onto a VHS tape in 1983 and kept in the Nexus studio until 2000; it was only digitised this year.The footage has since been shown to Sir Michael Palin, who starred in Monty Python and grew up watching Morecambe and Wise on stage.Addressing the comments, the actor told how he "wasn't surprised" at the couple's negative review and admitted he was "a little hurt", according to the BBC.He said: "It was a very interesting little interview."Though the quality wasn't great, you got exactly their

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Des O’Connor spent years being teased mercilessly about his singing by comedy duo Morecambe & Wise but he later admitted he was in on the jokes and actually wrote many of them himself.