SHORT TAKES : Fall Kills Dancer-Comic Wall

Max Wall, the music hall dancer and comedian who blossomed into an acclaimed stage actor in the plays of Samuel Beckett, died today after a fall. He was 82.

Wall fell at a restaurant in central London on Monday afternoon, said his agent, Joan Prichard. He never regained consciousness and died early this morning at Westminster Hospital from a fractured skull. Wall became famous for his “Professor Wallofsky” character, a double-jointed eccentric whose bizarre walk was said to have inspired John Cleese of the Monty Python Flying Circus, the comedy troupe.

Wall’s career went into decline after the breakup of his first marriage, and he was reduced to working obscure north England nightclubs. He married and divorced twice more. His fortune dwindled to bankruptcy.

But his career was resurrected when his comic talents and clown face, having reputedly attracted the attention of Beckett, landed him parts in the Irish playwright’s “Waiting for Godot” and “Krapp’s Last Tape.”