BANGKOK, THAILAND (AFP) - Former Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej, who was forced from office in 2008 for starring in television cooking shows, died of liver cancer Tuesday at the age of 74, associates said.

The colourful right-winger spent nine protest-hit months as premier, having stormed to victory in Thailand's first elections after the military coup that toppled his ally Thaksin Shinawatra from power.

Figures from all sides of the kingdom's bitterly divided political spectrum paid tribute to the fiery-tongued Samak, whose career spanned four decades and who had been battling liver cancer for more than a year.

Samak died "peacefully" at 8:48 am (0148 GMT) on Tuesday at Bangkok's private Bumrungrad Hospital after more than two months of medical treatment, said medical director Chamaree Chuapetcharasopon.

"He died peacefully. He was unconscious, which is the normal condition for the final stages of a cancer patient," she said.

Samak's body would be moved to the Bangkok's Marble Temple and on Wednesday would receive a Royal Bath - a Buddhist funeral ceremony and honour bestowed on high-ranking Thai citizens, his former secretary Teeraphon Noprampa said.

Thaksin, who is living in self-imposed exile to avoid a jail term for corruption, offered his condolences.

"My family and I express profound sorrow for the passing away of HE (His Excellency) Samak but I will not be able to attend his funeral," Thaksin said in a posting on the micromessaging site Twitter.

The silver-haired Samak was a leading figure on Thailand's political scene, with earlier stints as deputy prime minister, interior minister and governor of Bangkok. His family also had close ties to Thailand's deeply revered palace.

Before his time as premier, Samak had been taking a break from politics and featuring on two television shows, where he scoured markets advising viewers on selecting quality goods and whipping up Thai treats in the kitchen.

His gruff manner and colourful way with words may not have endeared him to the urban elite who had long dominated Thai politics, but he was personally backed by the populist Thaksin for the December 2007 post-coup elections.

With the support of the rural poor, who had also loved Thaksin for providing universal health-care and microcredit schemes, he and the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) stormed to victory.

But he faced growing protests by the so-called "Yellow Shirt" movement - which also helped topple Thaksin in 2006 - on the grounds that Samak was a proxy for the billionaire tycoon.

He stared down the demonstrators, who at one point besieged his offices at Government House in the city centre.

He even found time to continue his culinary moonlighting - with a unique take on certain pressing national matters that raised eyebrows. When consumers complained about the rising price of pork, he told them: "Eat chicken."

Yet it was the cooking shows that would lead to his political demise.

He was forced from office when the constitutional court said the payments he received from two programmes while serving as prime minister were illegal.

The PPP leadership moved quickly to restore him to power but it proved unpopular with both coalition partners and the party rank-and-file, with nearly one-third of the PPP's own lawmakers refusing to back his re-election.

Current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Thailand had lost a "remarkable" politician.

"My government has expressed condolences to his family and his political supporters. I have monitored his political role since I was young, it's a loss for our political circle," Abhisit told reporters.