Frazer Hines has called on Emmerdale bosses to bring his character back from the dead so he can return to the show.
The actor was an original cast member of the ITV soap, playing Joe Sugden from 1972 until he quit in 1994 and his character was killed in an off-screen car crash in 1995.
He told the Mirror: “The fans always want me back. They say ‘Why don’t you come back for six months as a guest?’ And I would do that.
“I left Emmerdale because I got sick of going to work when it was dark and coming home when it was dark. I’d just got married and owned a stud farm, and so I said I would leave.
“Then, 18 months later, I met the producer and he said ‘We are thinking of bringing you back in six months’ time.’
“And I said ‘Well, I’m doing this, that and the other.’ And he went ‘Well, if you don’t come back we’ll kill you off.’ So I said ‘Don’t kill him off, leave him in Spain.’ And they killed him off in a car crash.
“Fans say ‘because it was the Spanish police investigating, it might not have been your body’.
Hines, 74, who previously starred in Doctor Who, admitted that he does not watch current episodes of the soap but does tune in to repeats on ITV3.
He said: “I just don’t want to do five episodes a week, on a treadmill all the time. I have a great life.”