Highlights:
- Richard O'Sullivan, best known for playing Robin Tripp in Man About the House and Robin's Nest, has died at 82.
- He passed away peacefully at Brinsworth House, the Royal Variety Charity's care home in Twickenham, where he had lived for the past 23 years, surrounded by family.
- Brian Murphy, who played landlord George Roper in the same show, died in February 2025, aged 92, making O'Sullivan the second of the sitcom's central cast to die within roughly 18 months.
Richard O'Sullivan spent eight years playing the same trainee chef trying to share a London flat with two women who weren't supposed to be interested in him romantically, at least not according to the landlord downstairs. Man About the House made him one of the most recognisable faces on British television in the 1970s. He's died at 82, and with his death, a show that once felt like it belonged to an entire country keeps losing the people who actually made it.
British actor Richard O'Sullivan, the star of several television series of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images
How did O'Sullivan actually build his career?
He started as a child, not a heartthrob. At eight years old, he appeared in the 1954 thriller The Stranger's Hand, and by his teens he'd already worked opposite Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story and appeared in two films alongside Cliff Richard. In 1963, still only in his late teens, he played Ptolemy XIII opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra, one of the most famous productions in film history.
By the early 1970s he'd moved into television comedy, first as a nerdy doctor in Doctor at Large, then into the role that defined him. Man About the House ran for six series on ITV from 1973, casting O'Sullivan as Robin Tripp, sharing a flat with Chrissy and Jo, played by Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett. When the show ended in 1976, he carried the character straight into a spin-off, Robin's Nest, running it for another five years. In between, he took the title role in the period adventure Dick Turpin.
Why does Brian Murphy's death matter to this story?
Because O'Sullivan wasn't the only person carrying that show. Man About the House ran on the chemistry of its central cast, and two of the biggest names in that cast are now gone within a short stretch of each other. Brian Murphy, who played landlord George Roper opposite Yootha Joyce's Mildred, died in February 2025 at the age of 92. Joyce herself died decades earlier, in 1980. What's left standing from that original ensemble has gotten noticeably smaller over the past two years, even as the show itself keeps being repeated on British television for new viewers who never saw it the first time round.
| What's confirmed | |
|---|---|
| Died | Aged 82 |
| Best known for | Robin Tripp, Man About the House and Robin's Nest |
| Also known for | Title role in Dick Turpin |
| Where | Brinsworth House, Twickenham, his home for 23 years |
| Co-star also lost recently | Brian Murphy, died February 2025, aged 92 |
| Career began | Age 8, in The Stranger's Hand (1954) |
What have people who knew him said?
Giles Cooper of the Royal Variety Charity, which runs Brinsworth House, described O'Sullivan as "a master of effortless charm and impeccable comic timing," a fitting description for an actor whose whole screen persona ran on making difficult comic timing look effortless. His son, James O'Sullivan, spoke in simpler terms, remembering his father as a doting grandfather and a wonderful dad, and saying he was every bit as funny and warm at home as he appeared on screen.
What does this loss actually mean for the show's legacy?
It means fewer people left who can tell the story of how Man About the House actually got made, at a moment when British sitcoms were still working out how daring they were allowed to be. The show was considered genuinely bold for its time, built entirely around the premise of a man sharing a flat with two single women, and it went on to spawn the American hit Three's Company. O'Sullivan spent close to a decade of his career inside that one character. What he leaves behind isn't just a body of work. It's one of the last direct links to how that particular era of British comedy actually got built.
