A heavy smoker all his adult life, Corbett had his first heart attack in September 1979. According to his daughter, he smoked 60 cigarettes a day until the heart attack, after which he cut down to 20. He appeared in pantomime at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, within two days of leaving hospital. He was then badly hurt in a car accident. He appeared shortly afterwards in the BBC detective series "Shoestring", his facial injuries obvious. Other work included the film "Silver Dream Racer", with David Essex, and a Thames Television/ITV comedy series "Grundy", both in 1980. In the latter, Corbett played an old man discovering the permissive society after a lifetime of clean living. The series was a flop and was soon cancelled.