The Journal Saturday October 26th 1985.

Headline: 'Pet' comedy star Gary is Dead.
Subtitle: None.
Reporter: Not disclosed.
Photograph: Gary on location on Tyneside.
Photo caption: Actor Gary Holton while he and the Auf Wiedersehen
	       Pet cast were filming in Newcastle for a new series.
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Cockney actor Gary Holton, star of television's Auf Wiedersehen Pet
comedy series, who reportedly had major drug problems, was found dead
in bed yesterday.
His girlfriend discovered the body of the 33-year-old actor at a 
friends London house where they had been staying.
Mr. Holton, seen by millions of viewers recently in a TV lager advert
was said last year to have admitted suffering from a drugs problem.
But last night Scotland Yard said there was "no visible evidence" of
drugs being involved.
A spokesman said: "There appear to be no suspicious circumstances.  
He would appear to have died in his sleep."
The cause of death is not yet known and a post-mortem will be carried
out on Monday.  An inquest will be held.
Last year Mr. Holton suffered a brain haemorrhage which left him
temporarily paralysed, blind and unable to speak.  Doctors later gave
him a clean bill of health.
Several years ago he suffered a heart attack in a German hotel and
"died" for two minutes.

EPISODES

The actor had just returned to Britain after three spending weeks in
Marbella, Spain, recording the first episodes of a new series of Auf
Wiedersehen Pet.
Some filming was done earlier in Newcastle with Mr.Holton and other
members of the cast on Tyneside two months ago.
Actor Pat Roach, who plays West-Country "Gentle Giant" Bomber, in the 
series paid tribute to Gary on behalf of the show's cast.
Mr.Roach said Gary was "a great entertainer, both in character and out
of character."
He said: "Gary was always laughing and always had a smile.  Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet, Gary from the lads."
Mr. Holton played the cheeky cockney Wayne, in the series about a 
motley crew of building workers who went to work in Dusselldorf to
escape the doel queue.
He was to have attened a rehearsal at a Lodon television studio
yesterday morning.
He and his girlfriend Jahnet had been staying at a friends house in
Wembley, North London.
She found him dead when she went to wake him, according to a friend.
Keith Smith, controller of public affairs for Central Television,
makers of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, said :"There is a sense of total shock
among everybody here and of great loss.  His death will cast a shadow
over the series."
Gary Holton began his career as a child with the Salders Wells Company.
He stayed three years before joining the Old Vic company and later the
Royal Sheakspear Company.
At 17, he joined the touring company of the musical 'Hair', which
shocked audiences with scenes of nudity.
He left to form the punk band Heavy Metal Kids, with whom he toured 
Britain and America as lead singer.
In films, he played the lead in Stephen Frear's Bloody Kids and 
appeared in Quadrophenia and with singer Hazel O'Conner in Breaking
Glass.
On TV he had parts in Shoestring, and as "Eddie Hairstyle" in The
Knowledge.
In Auf Wiedersehen Pet Mr. Holton's character bragged about his
sexual conquests but in real life the actor led a tangled love life.
He split up with his wife Donna in 1981 but they never divorced.  He
then lived with model Susan Harrison and they had a son.
Last month he moved in with Jahnet and, it was reported, her boyfriend.

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Text (c) Evening Chronicle/Journal 1985.
Researched by Paul Armstrong and Keith Hogan.
Typed by Paul Armstrong for the Original Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
home page 1999. http://www.aufpet.com