The death has been announced of the actor Geoffrey Hinsliff, best known for playing Coronation Street's Don Brennan. He was 86.
His family said he "died at home surrounded by his family after a short illness".
A statement from his wife Judith and daughters Gaby and Sophie, said: "He was restless, curious, adventurous, and funny; he loved nothing better than setting the world to rights around the dinner table.
"But it was family and home that ultimately mattered to him most."
Hinsliff played Don Brennan in the ITV soap from 1987 to 1997 and was at the centre of one of the show's biggest storylines when he kidnapped Alma (played by Amanda Barrie) and drove the car in which they were travelling into a canal.
Don and Alma both survived, and he then tried to kill Alma's husband Mike (played by Johnny Briggs) by driving a car at him - killing himself in the process.
Paying tribute, Hinsliff's former co-star Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, said: "Geoff was a lovely, quiet man who will be sadly missed by us all.
"His partnership with Lynne Perrie (who played his on-screen wife Ivy) was something rather special and they gave the viewers huge pleasure for many years."
Leeds-born Hinsliff's many other credits included the series Doctor Who, Heartbeat, The Professionals, and I, Claudius, and the films A Bridge Too Far and O Lucky Man!.
"He also thoroughly enjoyed playing the forelock-tugging George Fairchild in the cult ITV satire Brass, a pastiche of gritty northern dramas, which said so much, and so cleverly, about class divides and the north of his childhood," his family's statement continued.
Hinsliff graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1960.
His family said: "Geoff was a working-class boy from a family of five, who left school in Leeds aged 15 with no qualifications, yet went on to study at RADA with a scholarship and to join the Royal Shakespeare Company.
"It was an English teacher who encouraged him to act, and all his life he fervently believed in the power of education."
Hinsliff is survived by his wife Judith and daughters Gaby, a columnist with The Guardian, and Sophie.
They added: "We'd like to thank the palliative care team at Ashgate Hospice in Derbyshire and the NHS for their unstinting support and care."
Additional Reporting: Press Association
