Sex symbol in a 70s tank top: how Richard O’Sullivan blazed a trail for funny, frisky, cheeky chappies

The star of Man About the House scored an unprecedented run of hit series during the 70s and 80s, bringing a youthful vitality that audiences – and tabloids – loved

• Richard O’Sullivan, star of 70s sitcom Man About the House, dies aged 82
• Dandies, docs and robbers: a life in pictures

Having started as a child actor – first appearing on screen aged seven – Richard O’Sullivan, who has died aged 82, went on to a major TV career playing still relatively youthful characters, representative of the social and sexual freedoms that grew from the liberations of the 1960s.

Between 1972 and 81, he appeared in more than 100 episodes of peak-time ITV comedies as funny, frisky men in their 20s and 30s. The first of these was Dr Lawrence Bingham in the hospital sitcom Doctor in Charge, radiating a cheeky charm that led to his career-defining casting as Robin Tripp in Man About the House, in the mid-70s and its spin-off, Robin’s Nest, a few years later.

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