Actor and star of Last of the Summer Wine and Wallace and Gromit

Born: February 1, 1921;

Died: June 2, 2017

THE actor Peter Sallis, who has died aged 96, had a long career in the theatre and on television before he landed the two roles for which he would become best known: the affable, gentle Clegg in the TV comedy sitcom Last of the Summer Wine and the loveable inventor Wallace in Nick Park’s animated films.

Last of the Summer Wine, which followed three childish old men larking about in a village in Yorkshire, was Britain’s longest-running sitcom and Sallis was there for the whole run. He was in the pilot, by Roy Clarke, in 1973, and 295 episodes later in 2010, he was in the last shot, uttering the series’ last words: “Did I lock the door?”

Last of the Summer Wine also led to the second role for which Sallis was famous. The young animator Nick Park had dreamed up the character of scatty inventor Wallace, always accompanied by his clever dog Gromit, and thought of Sallis as the voice. But it wasn’t until he heard the long, Northern vowels of Sallis as Wallace that he got the look of the character. There was something about the way Sallis lingered over the word “cheese” that suggested Wallace’s elongated mouth.

Sallis had originally agreed to voice Gromit for a small fee when Park was still a student at the National Film and Television School but the resulting film, A Grand Day Out, with its peerless stop-motion animation, was a huge hit and was nominated for an Oscar. Sallis went on to work on other Wallace and Gromit films, which led to his voice which became known around the world.

In reality, Sallis was not actually Northern – in fact, he was a Cockney, born in Twickenham, south-west London, to a father who was a bank manager and a mother who played the piano for professional singers.

The young Peter showed no interest in acting at school and his only link to the stage was his grandmother, who ran a theatrical boarding house in Northampton. On leaving school, he first tried training as a journalist but it was not for him so he followed his father into a banking career with Barclays and might have stayed there for life were it not for the Second World War.

Sallis signed up for the RAF but failed his aircrew medical and instead became a radio instructor based at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire for the duration of the war. It was at Cranwell that he was asked to appear in a performance of Hay Fever in 1943.

He caught the acting bug and when he was demobbed in 1946 he won a scholarship to Rada. He then went on to spend several years in repertory theatre and in his early career concentrated on theatre work, appearing opposite Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Orson Welles.

By 1947 he was also working in television – his first role was Quince in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream – and by the 1950s and 60s he was a regular supporting actor in a number of hit series of the time, including Z Cars and The Avengers. He also appeared in The Ice Warriors, a Doctor Who story during the Patrick Troughton era, and in several horror films in the 1970s including Taste the Blood of Dracula, Scream and Scream Again and Frankenstein: The True Story.

His role as Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine came in 1972 when Roy Clarke wrote a pilot for the BBC’s Comedy Playhouse. Clarke had Sallis in mind for the role from the start and the pilot became a series in 1973, with Bill Owen as Compo and Michael Bates as Cyril. Later, other actors would join the line-up, including Brian Wilde as Foggy Dewhurst, but Sallis stayed throughout the next three decades.

When Nick Park approached Sallis, he knew him from Last of the Summer Wine and thought he would be perfect for the student project he was working on. He did not expect Sallis to say yes, but he did and donated his modest £50 fee to charity.

Park remembers that there was something about Sallis’s nasal delivery that suggested Wallace’s tooth-laden grin. "The way he first said, 'We've forgotten the crackers Gromit' and 'Cracking toast Gromit' or just 'Cheeeese' soon led to Wallace's enormous 'coat-hanger' mouth,” said Park. "Just the way he pronounces Wensleydale cheese is enough. Once he's in place, everyone else fits around him.”

Park went on to make many other films featuring Wallace, with Sallis doing the voice. There was The Wrong Trousers in 1993 and A Close Shave in 1995, which both won Oscars, and a full-length film Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2006. It became a box office hit on both sides of the Atlantic and also landed an Academy Award.

Park said Sallis had always been his first and only choice for Wallace. "He brought his unique gift and humour to all that he did, and encapsulated the very British art of the droll and understated,” said Park. "Working with Peter was always a delight and I will miss his wry, unpredictable humour and silliness that started the moment he greeted you at the door, and didn't stop when the mic was switched off."

Last of the Summer Wine creator Roy Clarke said he met Sallis when he was cast in one of Clarke's plays in the 1960s and requested him specifically for the role of Clegg.

Clarke said: "I would like to testify to his bravery because for many years he had eye problems and he could barely read a script, but you would never know because I never heard him complain. He was tremendous, he just carried on.”

Sallis, who was appointed OBE for services to drama in 2007, married an actress, Elaine Usher, in the 1950s, but they divorced in 1965 before being briefly reconciled. She then left him for good in the 1980s, citing his many affairs. Sallis is survived by his son Crispian and two grandchildren.