'Fawlty Towers' actor David Kelly dies

Irish actor David Kelly, who played Charlie's Grandpa Joe in Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and faced the ire of Mrs. Fawlty as the inept builder O'Reilly in the second episode of "Fawlty Towers," has died in his native Dublin. He was 82.

Kelly's vast stage, TV and film career saw him become a theater luminary early on, with what The Irish Times called a "legendary" 1959 performance in Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.

He began acting at age 8 in that city's Gaiety Theatre and was still performing as late as last year.

His final film role was as a surprisingly spry guard in the 2007 British fantasy "Stardust."

Born July 11, 1929, Kelly was educated at Synge Street Catholic Boys School. British TV audiences saw him play eccentric Irish characters in a string of sitcoms, with a long-running role as a one-armed dishwasher in the 1977-81 comedy "Robin's Nest." His films include "The Italian Job" (1969), "Waking Ned Devine" (1998), in which he earned a SAG Award nomination for male actor in a supporting role, "Greenfingers" (2000), "Laws of Attraction" and "Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London" (both 2004).

He won a 1991 Helen Hayes award for outstanding supporting performer, nonresident production, for a Kennedy Center revival of "The Playboy of the Western World." In 2005, he won the Irish Film & Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

He was married to British TV actress Laurie Morton and had two children.