EastEnders creator Tony Holland dies

Tony Holland, the co-creator of EastEnders and a host of other drama series, has died, aged 67.

Holland, who also devised Eldorado, Angels and District Nurse, passed away in a London hospital after being unwell for some time, the BBC confirmed today.

He devised EastEnders with Julia Smith, his long-term collaborator, who he met on the set of Z Cars in 1971. The soap, set in the fictional London East End borough of Walford, launched on BBC1 screens in February 1985 and remains the network's biggest-rating weekly show.

Holland famously based half the soap's characters on his own family members and even got involved in the casting, approaching actress Wendy Richard to play Pauline Fowler, despite the fact she was originally thought to be too glamorous for Albert Square.

He wrote the EastEnders Chritmas Day 1986 episode, which remains the highest-rating instalment of the soap - and one of the most watched moments of British television. The BBC said it has an audience of 30.1 million viewers.

The episode focused on the ongoing disintegration of Den and Angie Watts' marriage.

Den told his wife that he knew she had lied about having six months to live as a ruse to keep them together.

The Christmas Day cliffhanger showed Den handing Angie a set of divorce papers outside the back of the Queen Vic pub, which they ran.

Former EastEnders lead scriptwriter Tony Jordan, who went on to work with Holland on Eldorado, paid tribute to him.

"He was probably the only writer I have ever been in awe of," Jordan told MediaGuardian.co.uk.

"He just had a grasp of story and imagination that went to a different place. He had a gift of taking a story and finding the heart of it. That is why EastEnders was so strong in the early days."

Spain-based soap Eldorado did not achieve the same success as EastEnders, but Jordan said this was because Holland's original idea of a drama based around English expats was changed.

"He created a series called Little Englanders about the siege mentality of English people abroad but what happened was that people saw it as a potential first Euro-super soap," he added.

"In the end Little Englanders disappeared and what you got was a show created by committee."

Jordan said Holland's greatest legacy would be EastEnders. "His life charted British TV," he added. "The BBC wouldn't be the BBC without EastEnders."

Holland won a special achievement gong at the British Soap Awards in 2002.

The BBC creative director, Alan Yentob, added: "Tony and Julia Smith together conceived and created EastEnders and that has to be a formidable achievement.

"Tony was intimately involved in every aspect of the show for the first four years including the classic blockbuster Christmas episode featuring Dirty Den and Angie in 1986.

"The concept of the drama serial centred on a large extended family was their brainchild and much of the detail, such as the creation of the Beale family and the focus on the Queen Vic pub, came from Tony."

The BBC drama controller, John Yorke, a former executive producer of EastEnders, said Holland's contribution to popular drama was "immeasurable".

Diederick Santer, the current executive producer of EastEnders, added: "He was a true genius and all of us at EastEnders are forever indebted to him for creating the programme with the late Julia Smith.

"Tony will be remembered with great affection and respect by everyone at EastEnders."

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