Chris Langham, the actor best known for his role in the BBC political satire The Thick of It, has died at the age of 77 following a private battle with pancreatic cancer, it emerged today.
Langham, whose once-prominent career in television, film and theatre collapsed after he was jailed for child sex offences in 2006, is understood to have died nearly three months ago.
His second wife, theatre director Chrissie Langham, remained by his side throughout his later years. He is survived by her and the couple’s two children.
Langham also had three older children from his first marriage to actress Sue Jones-Davies. They are understood to have continued supporting him in the aftermath of the scandal, as did his parents.
The actor and comedian was most widely recognised for playing the beleaguered government minister Hugh Abbott in The Thick of It, where his character was routinely humiliated by Peter Capaldi’s ferocious spin doctor Malcolm Tucker.
Langham was arrested days after winning the Bafta for Best Comedy Performance, the pinnacle of his career.
He always maintained he had downloaded child abuse images as research for a comedy series he was writing and was not a paedophile, a claim rejected by police.
He later said his own ‘arrogance’ and ‘ego’ had led him to view the abuse videos.
But the former star admitted the decision had ‘completely f***ed up my own life’.
‘It wasn’t circumstances. I’m not blaming it on anything or anybody,’ he later said.
Chris Langham with the Best Comedy Performance Bafta for The Thick of It, has died of cancer aged 77
Christine and Chris Langham at their home after his release from prison
His death was revealed by The Times today.
Born on April 14, 1949, he died of pancreatic cancer on June 24 this year.
Langham, who started out writing jokes for The Muppet Show and Spike Milligan, starred in comedy sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News before making his name in The Thick Of It.
Just days after winning a Bafta in 2006 for his role in the political satire as bumbling Labour minister Hugh Abbot, Langham was in court accused of child sex offences.
He was charged with 15 counts of downloading indecent images, including clips that showed the rape of a teenager and the sexual abuse of an eight-year-old.
During his trial one juror was physically ill after viewing it.
He was sentenced to ten months in jail.
Despite his release from Kent’s Elmley Prison after serving just three months in 2007, Langham’s acting career was effectively over.
He made several abortive attempts to work again, starring in two low-budget films, but they both bombed, and former friends and colleagues, including casting directors, shunned him.
Rejected by the showbiz world and out of work, Langham went to ground, retreating from the public eye to his large family home in Cranbrook, Kent.
Langham told journalist Cole Moreton in The Independent on Sunday: ‘I have completely f***ed up my own life. It wasn’t circumstances. I’m not blaming it on anything or anybody.’
He claimed in his defence that he was looking at the content to help him understand his own past – and as research for a character in a psychotherapy comedy.
But Langham admitted: ‘That was foolish. And ultimately selfish. Arrogant.
‘I thought ‘I will do this difficult thing.’ But it had no respect for the children whose tragedies I was prepared to witness.
‘It was just driven by ego. Because then you would like me, for taking this difficult subject and helping us all to see it differently [through comedy]. B*******.’
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Before his fall from grace, he had managed to rebuild his career and family life after battling drink and drugs.
‘My career was being a drunk, and work was something I did if I had a spare five minutes,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph in 2005.
‘I was self-destructive. You don’t like yourself if you are an alcoholic and other people don’t like you either, because your behaviour is appalling. You are dishonest, disloyal, full of self-pity.’
This behaviour had cost him his first marriage.
His arrest came shortly after the peak of his career, as hapless minister Hugh Abbott in BBC comedy The Thick of It
He also starred with Caroline Quentin in BBC TV series Kiss Me Kate
Just weeks before he died, it was revealed that he was making money in retirement from renting out a cottage in the grounds of his large home.
The spacious home in Kent, which sleeps up to six people, was available on Airbnb from £250 a night.
His theatre director second wife Chrissie stood by him and supported him financially when his acting work dried up.
Langham’s working life was said to revolve around managing their property.
He was a regular in his local gastropub.
A short drive away is a marina where he kept a boat which he took out on the English Channel.
One local told the Daily Mail in June: ‘He’s a lovely man, always smiling and very funny. I don’t know much about his past, only that he was an actor and was once very famous. Most of his time now is spent running the cottage. It’s very popular with a lot of guests and it’s busy all year round.’
Another resident said: ‘He’s a genuinely nice man. I think he’s paid the price for what he did. You can’t continue to punish someone for their mistakes. And given what went on, he’s probably better off being an Airbnb host than returning to showbiz.’
Indeed, even before the scandal that ended his career, Langham never found fame easy.
After being picked as a joke writer for Spike Milligan and The Muppet Show, Langham made his break on Not The Nine O’Clock News in 1979 – before he was dropped because of his excessive drinking.
He was replaced by Griff Rhys Jones for the second series, a blow which saw him spiral into a cycle of drug and alcohol addiction.
After checking into rehab and attending Alcoholics Anonymous, Langham landed his leading role in The Thick Of It – for which he was hailed a ‘genius’.
But then everything came crashing down. Weeks after season two had aired, Langham was arrested by Kent Police on November 29, 2005, accused of downloading child sex-abuse images – including ‘level five’ material, the most extreme category.
Langham argued in court that he’d downloaded the graphic material as part of research for a role as a sex offender in the BBC series Help, which he wrote and starred in alongside Paul Whitehouse.
He also told the jury he wanted to watch images of child abuse because he’d been raped by a family friend as a youngster, and wanted to understand more fully what he’d gone through.
During the police investigation, allegations emerged that he had groomed and repeatedly abused a 14-year-old girl who’d come to see him in the musical Les Misérables a decade earlier – but he was acquitted of these charges.
The judge had insisted: ‘Paedophilia is not an issue in this case – you are not a sexual predator.’
But a senior policeman who had investigated Langham insisted to reporters outside court that he believed the actor was a paedophile.
Detective Superintendent Paul Fotheringham of Kent Police said: ‘Langham doesn’t like the label, but I am satisfied that he is a paedophile.’
A friend said before his death: ‘In a strange way, it brought the family together because all of them went through a terrible time.
‘They are still very protective over Chris and have gone through a lot, but it’s made them very close and loving towards each other. It’s been a tough few years for Chris but he’s got a lot of peace of mind, and I think he now enjoys the quiet, country life and running his Airbnb.’