5 hours Ago By Chloe Govan
Andrew Sachs, who was renowned for being beaten about the head with a saucepan in his role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers, was a household name - and when he was diagnosed with dementia, he went to a care home befitting his celebrity status. Denville Hall, in Hillingdon on the outskirts of London, is primarily a retirement home for showbiz pros, with famous actors, actresses, dancers and even circus performers choosing to call it home. David Attenborough 's brother Richard and Black Narcissus actress Kathleen Byron were among those who passed through its doors.
However, the historic building also offers nursing and dementia support and Andrew Sachs moved into intensive care there for the last eight months of his life, after contracting pneumonia. He'd been diagnosed with vascular dementia four years earlier in 2012 - a condition which causes memory loss, cognition problems and confusion due to a faulty blood supply to the brain. It affects about 150,000 people in the UK - and at times, Andrew was impacted so severely that he no longer recognised what the Fawlty Towers episodes were, even after being played them to jog his memory.
His heartbroken wife, Melody, told the Mail of the shocking speed of his decline towards the end, revealing: "Dementia is the most awful illness. It sneaks in the night, when you least expect it. Even about a month before he died, he was sitting in the garden and chatting away.
" Andrew had been born in the German capital of Berlin, before his family fled the Nazis when he was aged just eight to start a new life in England. Less than a decade after they settled in North London, he was already appearing in films, with a glittering West End debut to follow - and of course, in 1975, he won his role in Fawlty Towers. Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, would constantly be shoving Manuel around and yelling at him - not to mention infamously bashing him over the head with a saucepan - but Andrew took the painful-looking role in his stride.
When his cognitive decline began, Melody knew Denville Hall was a fitting place for him to live out his last days, explaining: "I couldn’t think of anywhere nicer than Denville Hall. The staff are wonderful." The home's famous ambassadors - from Dame Helen Mirren to Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City, and Sir Patrick Stewart of X-Men -would no doubt agree.
.
