The actor Patrick Murray, who has died aged 68, found fame as Mickey Pearce, the trilby-wearing chancer who briefly goes into partnership with his old schoolfriend Rodney Trotter, in Only Fools and Horses, the TV sitcom created by John Sullivan.
He was introduced early in the third series, in a 1983 episode titled Healthy Competition, in which Rodney’s ambition to move on from being just a lookout for his older brother Derek (Del Boy) was instantly thwarted when Mickey ripped him off. The Trotter brothers (David Jason as Del and Nicholas Lyndhurst as Rodney) were reunited, and Mickey remained a regular presence all the way through to the programme’s final Christmas special in 2003.
