EastEnders star Nicholas Ball has passed away aged 78, after suffering from a short illness.
Ball was best known for playing Terry Bates on the popular BBC soap, with his character a notorious gang lord and leader of a football firm that was known for causing trouble, including attacking pub proprietor Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor).
He also appeared as club chairman Garry Ryan on Footballers’ Wives and as the lead detective James “Jim” Hazell in crime series, Hazell.
In a statement, Ball’s agent said he “passed away following a short illness” and added that his “successful acting career on stage and screen spanned an impressive six decades”.
Terry, appeared on the show between 2007 and 2009 before he is arrested and found guilty of the murder of Jase Dyer (played by Stephen Lord) in one of the show’s biggest storylines.
Terry had taken Jase under his wing at a young age, but things turn sour when Jase, a former gang member says he no longer wants to be part of the group’s criminal activities but then ends up stealing money from Terry. The character was written out of the show and revealed to have died in 2019.
Ball had recently been shooting scenes for countryside drama The Kingdom by the Sea alongside Coronation Street actor Rula Lenska.
He had also appeared in episodes of crime shows Jonathan Creek, Hustle, Heartbeat and Bergerac along with comedies Red Dwarf, The Young Ones and drama The Crezz.
His roles in small and big screen films include war drama Overlord, thriller Rogue Male, crime drama The Krays: Dead Man Walking and Jilly Cooper adaptation The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous.
Fans reacted to the news, as they paid tribute to the star.
“Nicholas Ball was absolutely brilliant as Terry Bates in EastEnders. One of the show’s more underrated villains,” wrote one person on X/Twitter.
Another added, “Sorry to hear of the passing of Nicholas Ball. More commonly seen in our house in the TV series Hazell for me he will always be that conniving trickster (to put it mildly) in the Hammer House TV episode ‘The House That Bled to Death.’”
Ball’s wife Ayda survives him. The actor was previously married to Pamela Stephenson, Sir Billy Connolly’s second wife.
