was completed when Beck suddenly fell ill while opening a school fête in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind. He returned home and within an hour was taken to Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton suffering from pancreatitis. He died three weeks later, due to a combination of heart failure, renal failure and pancreatitis, aged 44, and was cremated at Putney Vale Cemetery, where a tree was planted in his memory, with a marker bearing his name. The last time Beck's Dad's Army co-stars saw him alive was on Friday 13 July 1973 at the Playhouse Theatre in London where he recorded two radio episodes of Dad's Army (which ran alongside the TV series). The following afternoon Beck suddenly became ill. His death was a great shock to his fellow cast members, as well as to Jimmy Perry and David Croft. Perry has said that heavy drinking was common in show business at the time, and that he paid little attention to Beck's habit until "I saw Jimmy’s legs and they were purple. It was the last episode he appeared in before he died." In the sixth series, during the episode "Things that Go Bump in the Night", Walker is present only in the location scenes in the second half of the episode, as these were filmed weeks earlier than the studio scenes. In one of the videotaped sequences filmed after Beck's death, the platoon is aboard Corporal Jones's van when Captain Mainwaring tells Sergeant Wilson to "take Private Walker's name". Wilson writes the name "Walker" in the condensation on the window. In the following episode, "The Recruit" (the series 6 finale), Mainwaring reads a note written by Walker apologising for his absence, as he has gone "up the Smoke" (to London) to conduct one of his deals. This was the last time the character was mentioned. In the radio adaptations of Dad's Army, Graham Stark stood in until Larry Martyn portrayed Walker in subsequent shows. John Bardon played Walker in the stage production in 1976. Filmography Film Television Radio References Further reading External links James Beck BFI 1929 births 1973 deaths Male actors from London Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art Burials at Putney Vale Cemetery Deaths from pancreatitis British male comedy actors English male television actors English male film actors English male stage actors People from Islington (district) 20th-century English male actors British Army soldiers 20th-century British Army