Jack Douglas had a long career in variety acts as a straight man and was later an accomplished comic character actor. He was best known for his appearances in eight of the Carry On films, usually in the guise of his alter ego, “Alf Ippititimus”.

Alf was a grotesque creation, a cloth-capped, bumbling figure who affected a stutter and a violent twitch of the right arm, which inevitably sent plates, custard pies and pints of beer flying. As chaos ensued, he would shout “Whey-hey!” which, inevitably, became his catchphrase. The routine was slapstick in a music hall tradition — and ideally suited to the Carry On genre.

He was born in Newcastle as Jack Roberton and came from a family whose roots in variety could be traced back four generations. His father, John D. Roberton, was a respected impresario. Jack recalled that on his 15th birthday his father gave him a pantomime script and told him to go to the Sunderland Empire and direct the show himself. It was, he said, “my baptism of fire”. By the age of 19 he was a professional stand-up comic touring the country. In his twenties he teamed up with another comedian, Joe Baker Jnr. Douglas was a highly skilled straight man, and both he and Baker became one of the most successful double acts in the country.

Joe Baker eventually set his sights on a career in Hollywood as an actor and the double act disbanded in the early 1960s. The twitching character of Alf, developed during the partnership, was based on a bandleader they had met at a Butlin’s holiday camp.

Having earned a reputation as a brilliant stooge, Douglas worked occasionally with Bruce Forsyth and Benny Hill, and, for 12 years, with Des O’Connor. He and O’Connor topped the bill in numerous summer seasons: they appeared in more than 50 TV specials and were the unexpected hit of the Royal Variety Show in 1969. The following year they appeared in America on The Ed Sullivan Show.

By 1972 O’Connor was carving out a solo career as a singer, leaving Douglas temporarily in limbo. A chance meeting the same year with the Carry On producer Peter Rogers led to a cameo appearance in Carry On Matron, billed as “a twitching father”. From then on, Douglas was involved in the films, including Carry on England and Carry on Girls, until their demise with the abysmal Carry On Emmanuelle (1978). Although not billed as Alf in the series — he was Ernie Bragg and Sergeant Jock Strapp in two of them — he retained the basic gormless character. He starred in the TV spin-offs and headlined in the stage version, Carry On Laughing, seen in Scarborough in 1974, in which he was notable for his brilliant ad-libbing. A staunch champion of the series, he was often eager to suggest new ideas for the films, once informing Peter Rogers that Sir John Gielgud should make an appearance. He also suggested that a Carry On Parliament be made. The latter idea was rejected on the ground that it was “unbelievable”. Douglas also appeared in the 1992 revival Carry on Columbus.

When the series finished, Douglas returned to the stage in tours of both Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus and Michael Frayn’s Make a Break. On television he was in demand for commercials (usually as Alf) and he was outstanding as Jake in The Shillingbury Tales (1980). He wrote a musical called What a Performance!, based on the life of the comedian Sid Field, and was a popular stalwart on radio and TV nostalgia programmes as a raconteur.

He was a reserved figure offstage, numbering among his hobbies listening to jazz music and cookery. He wrote several books about cuisine, the first of which was titled The Whey Hey Guide to Better Cookery. He is survived by his partner, Vivien Howell.

Jack Douglas, comic actor, was born on April 26, 1927. He died on December 18, 2008, aged 81