Actor Jay Benedict has died at the age of 68 after contracting coronavirus.

Jay Benedict played Russ Jordan in 'Aliens'. He also starred in 'The Dark Knight Rises' and had previously been in 'Emmerdale'.

In a statement posted on his official website, his management team wrote: "It is with profound sorrow that we must announce Jay's death on the 4th of April due to complications arising from a COVID-19 infection."

Together with his wife, Phoebe Scholfield, Jay ran the Sync or Swim post-production company which provides automated dialogue replacement services to the movie and TV industry. The company’s recent projects include 'Downton Abbey', 'Call The Midwife', 'Dickensian' and 'Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands'.

In their obituary, Jay's management wrote: "Jay was born in California, but his family left the United States for Europe when he was a child.

"As a legacy of his itinerant childhood, he is English/French bilingual, and no slouch in Spanish and German, either.

"People meeting him in 'real life' are surprised that he sounds more English than American – but so would you if you’d lived in Europe for 50-odd years (some of them very odd indeed). This doesn’t, however, prevent most casting agents from insisting that he play Americans – which he does happily and, not entirely surprisingly, like a native."

It continued: "He's probably best known today for his two appearances as John Kieffer – the US Army officer and friend of Christopher Foyle - in 'Foyle's War', but in his varied career he has danced with the legendary Zizi Jeanmaire at 'Le Casino De Paris', played almost every male role in 'The Rocky Horror Show' in the early 1970s (given half a chance, he'd probably have had a crack at the female ones, too …) and has appeared frequently on stage in both straight drama and musical theatre."

Jay leaves behind his wife and their two sons, Leopold and Freddie, as well as his daughter from a previous relationship.