Leslie Phillips – who voiced the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter – dies aged 98

His death on Monday after a long illness brought down the curtain on a long and glittering career in show business.

Leslie Phillips – who voiced the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter movies – has died aged 98.

His death on Monday after a long illness brought down the curtain on eight decades in show business.

Phillips also found fame with his roles in the wildly successful British Carry On films.

Paying tribute, his wife Zara, 63, said: “I’ve lost a wonderful husband and the public has lost a truly great showman”.

“He was quite simply a national treasure. People loved him. He was mobbed everywhere he went.

“When we married he cheekily introduced me to the Press as royalty, insisting I was the new Zara Phillips and that I was related to the Queen.”

Leslie Phillips voiced the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter

Phillips starred in over 200 films, TV and radio series over his glittering career, The Sun reported.

An accomplished Shakespearean actor, Phillips also trod the boards in stage shows around the world.

But he was best known for his roles as the smooth-talking rogue with an eye for the ladies in the Carry On and Doctor comedy films in the 1950s and 60s.

Because of those films, he became famous for his trademark caddish phrases, “LUMME”, “WELL, HELLO,” “I SAY” and “DING DONG” – directed at sexy women on camera.

He often joked that the chat-up lines – delivered in rich dulcet tones – would follow him to the grave and that one of those lines will probably be inscribed on his headstone.

Actor Leslie Phillips arrives at The Orange British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Opera House on February 11, 2007 in London, England. Picture: Wikimedia Commons/Caroline Bonarde.

In World War II he served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry but was declared unfit for service just before D-Day with a nervous illness that caused partial paralysis.

While his acting career took off after the war, his personal life was plagued by tragedy.

He married actor Penelope Bartley in 1948 and they had two sons and two daughters.

Despite returning from America, long absences away from home meant the couple inevitably grew apart.

By then he had begun a nine-year affair with Caroline Mortimer, followed by a relationship with actor Vicki Luke.

Penny Bartley finally divorced him in 1965 but they stayed in touch until she was killed in a house fire in 1981.

At the time of Penny’s death, Phillips was starring in a play in Australia and did not return to the UK.

His children never forgave him for missing their mum’s funeral.

Leslie Phillips alongside Daniel Craig

The following year he married Bond girl Angela Scoular. When they got together five years earlier she was pregnant with another man’s son, who Phillips brought up as his own.

In 1993, Phillips’ beloved mum, then 92, was mugged at a bus stop by teenagers.

Margaret would not give up her bag because it contained items Phillips had given her. They dragged her along the road and she broke several bones. She died a few weeks later.

Phillips always maintained she was murdered but the youths responsible were never caught.

His sister Doris, who had cared for their mother, never got over it and died of a stroke six months later.

Then April 2011, tragedy struck again. His wife Angela – who he first met on the set of Carry on Nurse – died by suicide.

Family friend, Zara Carr, consoled Phillips and helped him come to terms with Angela’s death.

He later proposed to Zara, who was 30 years his junior, and she saved his life by acting quickly to get Phillips to hospital when he suffered a major stroke that left him confined to a wheelchair.

The Queen honoured Phillips with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal in 1998 and ten years later a made him a Commander of the British Empire (OBE) for services to showbiz.

This story was originally published by The Sun and was reproduced with permission.