Biography

Filming on the fourth series of Only Fools and Horses (1981) began in February, 1984. David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst where in makeup when a distraught Butt came in to tell them Lennard Pearce had died over the weekend of a heart attack; his body at the foot of a flight of stairs. Jason and Lyndhurst were shocked and speechless and filming was canceled. Pearce had not been a well man, he was a heavy smoker even on the job. Pearce's funeral was several days later; a small and humble affair. Pearce didn't have much in the way of family; his landlady and her daughter were the closest people to him, but the cast mourned him like losing a family member.

Best known for his work on Only Fools and Horses.

During filming of the famous chandelier episode of Only Fools and Horses (1981) he stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth so as not to ruin the climactic shot.

Butt retired in 1989, and was survived by his partner Jo Blyth.

In David Jason's autobiography, he described Butt's London accent as so East End, you could cut it with a knife. In fact, he landed the part of Del Boy on Only Fools and Horses (1981) by ironically making fun of Butt's Cockney accent with a pitch perfect imitation. Initially, Butt felt Jason was wrong for Del Boy but after hearing Jason's Cockney accent he relented. But John Sullivan still wasn't convinced, which increased Jason's determination to win the role. He didn't think he'd get the part, like he missed out on a role in Dad's Army (1968), but Ray Butt asked him to read again, with Nicholas Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce, who were cast already. He remembered the first read-through as "when the three of us began to put our voices to the lines, the magic was in the room. All the component parts just fitted. The whole thing was sounding like it had been written for us. When we reached the end of our read, silence fell on the room." Then Jason was hired.