Keith Harris dies aged 67, after battle with cancer

Entertainer Keith Harris, best known for his performances with Orville the Duck and Cuddles the Monkey, has died aged 67 after battling cancer.

His friend and agent Robert C Kelly announced the news on Twitter and led tributes to the veteran performer.

"Keith was not only a technically great ventriloquist, he was also a gifted mimic and an extraordinarily funny man both on stage and off," he told the Press Association.

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"Perhaps even rarer than that in showbiz, he was a thoroughly decent man, a great friend and a wonderful father and husband."

Fellow performers Keith Chegwin, Paddy McGuinness and Les Dennis were among those who paid tribute on social media. "So sad. A great entertainer and all round nice man Keith Harris has passed away. Best wishes to his family at this sad time. RIP x," said Chegwin.

In a career spanning more than half a century, Harris starred in every major theatre across the country and performed at private events for the royal family. He had a top ten hit single with "Orville's Song" and was a regular fixture of Saturday night TV in the 1980s with The Keith Harris Show on BBC One.

He recently reinvented himself, touring student unions with an adult-themed show entitled 'Duck Off', shocking audiences with his "grown-up" humour.

Diagnosed with cancer of the spleen in 2013, he was given the all-clear after months of surgery and chemotherapy and quickly returned to the stage.

But last year during a performance in Great Yarmouth, he told the audience that the illness had returned and required further treatment. "He was moved to tears when they gave him a standing ovation," the BBC reports.

He was married four times and leaves behind wife Sarah and children Skye, 27, Kitty, 15, and Shenton, 13. He spent his last months "at his second home in Portugal, taking walks along the Blackpool seafront and sitting in the park eating ice cream and watching the world go by," said Kelly.