Jack Rosenthal Dies

net1

Television writer Jack Rosenthal has died in hospital at the age of 72.

Rosenthal, who won three Baftas, wrote several early episodes of Coronation Street and the play that was turned into TV drama London's Burning.

A father of two, he was married to actress Maureen Lipman. His family were at his bedside at the North London Hospice when he died, his agent said.

Casarotto said: "Jack Rosenthal died peacefully at 11.20 this morning from complications due to multi-myeloma, a form of cancer, at the North London Hospice.

"He was surrounded by his family and the wonderful nursing team after a Herculean struggle. He was writing to the end."

During the 1970s Rosenthal was widely acclaimed as one of the UK's finest small-screen dramatists in what was seen as a golden age of TV plays.

Three of his works - Bar Mitzvah Boy, The Evacuees and Spend, Spend, Spend - won back-to-back British Academy awards.

Alongside plays such as Another Sunday & Sweet FA, and The Evacuees, they epitomised a gritty new style of working class drama.

His other credits include comedy series Bootsie and Snudge, and The Lovers, while he co-wrote the 1984 Hollywood film Yentl, starring Barbra Streisand.

London's Burning, which he created as a one-off play aired in 1986, became ITV's longest-running drama after Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

Born in Manchester, Rosenthal worked in advertising before joining Granada where he became a regular writer on Coronation Street in the early 1960s.