ONE of the best-known faces of British comedy, the actor Derek Nimmo has died, aged 68.

The veteran comedy star and producer had been in hospital since falling at his home in Kensington, west London, before Christmas.

Barry Burnett, his agent for the past 12 years, said Nimmo had died around 5pm yesterday at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, with his family: his wife Pat, sons Tim and Piers, and daughter Amanda, around him.

Ecclesiastical hits including All Gas And Gaiters, Oh Brother! and then Oh Father!, as well as Hell's Bells saw Nimmo play a range of clerics. In his time he was a curate, a monk, a Catholic priest, and a Dean.

His ability to subsume himself into the roles and give off an air of religious piety was so convincing it almost landed him in trouble while filming for the BBC series Oh Brother! in 1969.

In Father Dominic garb he was arrested on the steps of St Peter's Basilica by Vatican police after being seen with his arm around a mini-skirted girl by a shocked nun. The actor was innocently obliging an English tourist who had spotted him and asked him to pose with his daughter for a photo.

Originally from Liverpool, Nimmo went into acting purely by chance.

Smitten by an attractive girl who tried to sell him tickets for the amateur theatre production in which she was starring, he decided to sign up.

Patricia went on to become his wife of 43 years.

''She was frightfully pretty so I joined the company,'' he once recalled.

His professional acting career began at the Hippodrome in Bolton for the grand sum of #4 a week at the age of 21. At one point as a newly-married, struggling actor he made his home in a caravan which was parked - when not on the touring circuit - just off London's Edgware Road.

As his career developed he became a regular on the TV and stage, and took a number of film roles. Nimmo, also noted as a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 game Just a Minute, was a leading figure in the campaign to oppose women's membership of the exclusive Garrick Club in London. ''The only excuse for joining the Garrick is to get away from women,'' he said.

He hit the headlines again two years ago when he crashed his Rolls-Royce into three cars in Buckinghamshire after the accelerator pedal got stuck and he ended up in a ''charming lady's greenhouse''.

''I switched off the key and bought her a hydrangea,'' he said.