Bill Treacher, better known to many EastEnders fans as Arthur Fowler, left the soap almost two decades ago.
But now, as the show reaches its 30th anniversary, the 84-year-old actor has revealed why he has been unable to work since leaving Walford.
Speaking with The Mirror, Bill explained that he is now battling ataxia, a degenerative disease that has robbed him of his balance and his ability to walk.
Now he has to rely on a wheelchair to get around - putting an end to his acting career.
He said: “I’m not doing any work now.
“I can’t bloody well walk.”
However he confessed that he is happy with his lot,as, for a time, he feared his work on EastEnders would kill him.
Suffering from three migraines a day, his vision was left blurry - and he was put on beta-blockers to help him cope with the stress.
Eventually, after 11 years on the soap, he was forced to ask writers to kill his character off.
He said: “Alan Yentob, who ran BBC1 back then, had said: ‘Please don’t leave, Bill.’
"But I said, ‘I have to. I’ve done this for as long as I can. If I don’t leave now I’ll be carted off to hospital and you’ll have to change all your scripts. Let me go now. That way you can plan for it.’
"So that’s what we did. It wasn’t a bad job.”
Arthur Fowler suffered a fatal brain aneurysm whilst working on his beloved allotment - and, to this day, Bill has not watched another episode of EastEnders.
Slamming the Lucy Beale 'whodunnit' storyline as "rubbish", he added: "In my day the storylines were bang on.
"I was lucky to be part of that. The BBC put everything they had behind it. They had the very best writers working on the show. Now they just get cheap ones.”
We're sure many fans might disagree with him, to be honest.
This week’s series of special anniversary EastEnders shows begins at 7.30pm on Tuesday on BBC1.