EastEnders star Nicholas Ball has passed away aged 78, after suffering from a short illness. According to a close family source. Ball recently filmed the 2024 rural-set drama The Kingdom By The Sea, opposite Coronation Street actress Rula Lenska.
Who was Nicholas Ball?
John Nicholas Ball was an English actor. He was best known for playing the title role in the television series Hazell. He portrayed the vicious gang lord Terry Bates in EastEnders between 2007 and 2009. He played Garry Ryan in series five of Footballers’ Wives and both series of its spin-off programme Footballers’ Wives: Extra Time. The voice of Nicholas Ball can be heard as well on various audio books offered via the internet; he has narrated books from such authors as Christopher Hitchens and James Maybrick. He was, in 2019, in an advert for Premier Inn, playing the part of Lenny Henry’s manager.
Ball was best known for playing Terry Bates on the popular BBC soap, with his character a notorious gang lord and leader of a football firm that was known for causing trouble, including attacking pub proprietor Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor). He also appeared as club chairman Garry Ryan on Footballers’ Wives and as the lead detective James “Jim” Hazell in crime series, Hazell.
Nicholas Ball Agent Statement
In a statement, Ball’s agent said he “passed away following a short illness” and added that his “successful acting career on stage and screen spanned an impressive six decades”. Terry, appeared on the show between 2007 and 2009 before he is arrested and found guilty for the murder of Jase Dyer (played by Stephen Lord) in one of the show’s biggest storylines. The character was written out of the show and said to have died in 2019.
Fans paid tribute to the star saying..
“Nicholas Ball was absolutely brilliant as Terry Bates in EastEnders. One of the show’s more underrated villains,” wrote one person on X/Twitte
Another added, “Sorry to hear of the passing of Nicholas Ball. More commonly seen in our house in the TV series Hazell for me he will always be that conniving trickster (to put it mildly) in the Hammer House TV episode ‘The House That Bled to Death.’”
