Ray Galton, who created ground-breaking sitcoms including Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son with fellow writer Alan Simpson, has died aged 88, his family has announced.
The scriptwriter died on Friday night after a "long and heartbreaking battle with dementia".
"Ray passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family. We respectfully request there are no attempts to contact the Galton family home at this time." His family said in a statement on Saturday.
His manager Tessa Le Bars said: "I have had the great honour of working with Ray for over 50 years and for the last 40 as his manager and friend."
She added, "With his lifelong co-writer, the late Alan Simpson, they were regarded as the fathers and creators of British sitcom.
"The end of an iconic era, but the legacy of Hancock's Half Hour, Steptoe and Son and over 600 scripts is huge.
"They will endure, inspire and bring laughter to the nation for evermore."
Galton met his writing partner Simpson, who died last year, at Milford Sanatorium in Surrey when both were diagnosed with tuberculosis as teenagers.
They worked with Tony Hancock on BBC radio - and later television - show Hancock’s Half Hour and with Harry H Corbett and Dublin-born Wilfrid Brambell on Steptoe and Son.
Galton and Simpson also wrote television, film and stage scripts for Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers, Leonard Rossiter and Dad’s Army star Arthur Lowe.
Their work is still screened regularly around the world in English and in foreign language versions.
Steptoe and Son was adapted for US TV as Sanford and Son and ran for several years in the 1970s on NBC.
