John Louis Mansi He was best known for his role as Engelbert von Smallhausen (although in the BBC books he is named as Bobby Cedric von Smallhausen) in the popular BBC sitcom "'Allo 'Allo!" in seasons 2 to 9. He also appeared in "Department S" (as "Maxime" in the episode "The Treasure of the Costa del Sol", 1969), the "Ripping Yarns" story "Across the Andes By Frog", and the "Hammer House of Horror" story "The Thirteenth Reunion". His film appearances have included "The Small World of Sammy Lee" (1963), the Beatles' film "Help!" (1965), the original version of "The Italian Job" (1969), "Tales
Gorden Kaye made a guest appearance in a Christmas special of "Family Fortunes", in which he served as team captain and placed host Les Dennis on a special "Double Big Money" round for Dennis to score more than one hundred points to double the charity prize money, which he did. In 1982, David Croft sent Kaye the script for the pilot episode of "'Allo 'Allo!" inviting him to play the central character of René Artois. He accepted and appeared in all 84 episodes (the main series ran from 1984, two years after the pilot, until 1992) and 1,200 performances of the stage