Fred Feast
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Fred Feast (October 5, 1929 - June 25, 1999) was a British actor, born in Scarborough.
He was best known for his role as the Rovers Return's "potman", Fred Gee, a crooked man with unscrupulous morals, on the soap opera Coronation Street, a role he played from 1975 to 1984. After leaving the soap, he went on to a three-year stint on the BBC1 series All Creatures Great and Small in a minor role.
In 1983, Feast took time off sick at a moment's notice, causing the script writers to have to re-draught 12 episodes (then the equivalent of six weeks of programmes.) He claimed to be depressed, had trouble remembering his lines, and suffered from bouts of uncontrollable weeping. Podmore later said that if he had come to him and explained this in the first place, his role could have been temporarily reduced; appearing as a bar person in The Rovers, the focal point of Coronation Street, means that an actor tends to be in more scenes than other characters. Bill Podmore described Feast as 'earthy', and Fred Gee as being a toned-down screen version of Fred Feast.
The next time he took time off, in 1984 it was permanently. Fred Gee had gone from being an unlikeable loser to being an outright buffoon, getting the sack from The Rovers from owner Billy Walker after punching him in the face, unable to see that Walker had goaded him into it so he could fire him without having to pay him any redundancy. Business deals behind the back of London textile magnate Mike Baldwin also backfired. Feast refused to sign a new contract, stating in the British national press that he didn't want to become "...another Coronation Street cabbage", referring to several cast members - namely Peter Dudley, Jack Howarth and Bernard Youens, who had all recently died. Fred Gee was not killed off at that point, he was simply never mentioned again. He last appeared in the soap in September 1984. His place at The Rovers was taken by Jack Duckworth (William Tarmey).
Feast later admitted that he regretted leaving the show, his bravado after having resigned long since gone. His character was killed off with a Heart Attack in January 1999, a few months before Feast's own real-life death from abdominal cancer. The news was given to Jack and Vera Duckworth by Fred's ex-wife Eunice (Meg Johnson) that he had passed away, in a manner that was not disclosed.
