Harry Landis, who has died aged 95 of cancer, left behind a poverty-stricken childhood in the East End of London to become a character actor on stage and screen for eight decades. When he stepped out from the wings into the spotlight, he left television viewers with memories of two very different characters, one gentle and sympathetic, the other simply obnoxious.
He spent 18 months in EastEnders (1995-97) as the Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor Felix Kawalski, who owned a barbershop in the fictional Albert Square – keeping in the cellar his father’s treasured collection of butterflies, which he had brought to Britain after fleeing the Nazis. Felix believed his parents and sister had perished.
