Richard O'Sullivan, the actor best known for playing Robin Tripp in the 1970s ITV sitcom Man About the House, has died aged 82. A former child actor, he built an unprecedented run of hit series through the 1970s and 80s, becoming a defining face of the era's more liberated sitcom style and a tabloid-favoured sex symbol whose knitted tank tops did little to dim his appeal.

Between 1972 and 1981 he appeared in more than 100 episodes of peak-time ITV comedies, starting with Doctor in Charge before his breakthrough as Robin Tripp, a man sharing a flat platonically with two women, in Man About the House and its spin-off Robin's Nest. The franchise, alongside the George and Mildred spin-off, drew audiences of tens of millions, and O'Sullivan went on to star in Dick Turpin and later Me and My Girl, giving him five consecutive hit series. His health declined after this run, with his final screen credit in 1996 and a stroke in 2002 after which he was cared for at the Brinsworth House retirement home for entertainers.