Iconic TV chef Keith Floyd has died, aged 65

Iconic TV chef Keith Floyd has died, aged 65 (Image credit: PA Archive/PA Photos)

TV chef Keith Floyd has died following a heart attack. The 65-year-old died at his partner's Dorset home on Monday, according to James Steen, who helped write his autobiography. Floyd had been diagnosed with cancer in June. The BBC reports that the chef, from Faringdon in Oxfordshire, shot to fame in the 1980s in ground-breaking cookery shows, fronted with huge enthusiasm and wineglass in hand. Floyd's idiosyncratic, often shambolic style of presentation endeared him to millions of viewers around the world. Fellow celebrity chef Marco Pierre White said: "What he did to inspire a nation, I don't know another man who has done what he has done. "He had this great ability at the stove, great confidence. He was a natural cook. "But his very special talent was he could articulate himself and deliver inspiration with words. He spoke in a way that everybody could understand." He added: "He enriched many people's lives. It's very sad. "A little piece of Britain died yesterday which will never be replaced. "He was an individual, he was a maverick, he was mercurial, he was magical, he was special, he was rare."

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.