Ronnie Corbett, a diminutive British comedian with an outsized personality, exquisite timing and a heart of gold, died Thursday at the age of 85. He had spent decades on TV and was one of the country’s best-loved entertainers.
Something about his personality, timing and comedic genius enabled him to make the most mundane jokes riotously funny. In one of his more famous skits, he played a store clerk. His longtime comedy partner, Ronnie Barker, playing a customer, walks in and orders four candles.
When Corbett presents his customer with four candles, the customer says, “No! Four candles! Handles for forks!”
And in the hands of the two Ronnies, as they were known, that simple joke, along with a subsequent series of miscommunications, becomes the occasion for great hilarity.
Corbett had “the best timing I’ve ever watched,” John Cleese, the comedian and Monty Python co-founder, said Thursday, in paying tribute.
Corbett was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 4, 1930. He served in the Royal Air Force where, at 5 feet 1 inch tall, he was the shortest commissioned officer in the service. Throughout his life, he rarely missed a chance to make fun of his height.
His big break came in 1966, when he was hired to appear in “The Frost Report,” a satirical program hosted by David Frost. It was there that the two Ronnies first met. They appeared together in a show of that name from 1971 to 1987.
And for the rest of his life, Corbett, who was loved by his fellow entertainers, was rarely off television.
In 2012, when he was in his 80s, Queen Elizabeth appointed him a commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, for services to entertainment and charity.
“It is a great honor, really,” he said afterward. “In our business, to work away your whole life, and still be working, and then have this honor at this age from her majesty in Buckingham Palace — it doesn’t come much better, does it? Really lovely.”
Tributes poured in Thursday as news of Corbett’s death was announced. He was, said British actor Hugh Laurie, a “beautiful, brilliant man.”