Good life ends for British actor Richard Briers British actor Richard Briers, known for his enduring role in TV sitcom The Good Life, has died aged 79. British actor Richard Briers, an avuncular presence on TV and movie screens for decades, has died at the age of 79. BRITISH actor Richard Briers, star of the famed TV show The Good Life, has died at the age of 79. Briers' agent says the actor died at his London home. Briers starred in the 1970's sitcom The Good Life as Tom Good, a man who decides to quit the urban rat race for a life of self-sufficiency along with his long-suffering wife Barbara, played by Felicity Kendal. It is regularly voted one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time, and is still repeated on television. In later life he took on more film work and appeared in nine of British actor-director Richard Branagh's films, particularly in Shakespearean roles, including in Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. Briers blamed smoking for his illness, in an interview published on January 31.