George Cole enjoyed a remarkable 75-year acting career that began at 15 in Cottage to Let (1941), opposite Alastair Sim, who became his lifelong mentor. He became well known for playing the charming rogue “Flash Harry” across the St Trinian's comedy films of the 1950s and '60s, but his most iconic role by far was the wheeler-dealing Arthur Daley in the long-running ITV series Minder (1979–1994), a character that came to define his later career despite his own mixed feelings about it. He also collaborated with Laurence Olivier in prestigious film work, and kept working in television comedy into his eighties.