Actress Wendy Richard, best known for her portrayal of Pauline Fowler in the soap opera EastEnders, died yesterday aged 65, her agent said.
Richard revealed in a newspaper interview in October that she had terminal cancer and soon afterwards she married her long-term partner John Burns. It was her fourth marriage.
Her breakthrough television role was in the 1970s department store sitcom Are You Being Served?, in which she played glamorous sales assistant Miss Brahms.
Earlier in her career, she had gained a degree of fame as a model and in 1962 her duet with singer Mike Sarne, Come Outside, topped the charts. She joined EastEnderswhen the BBC programme began in 1985 and remained until 2006, when her character died. Richard said her departure was over objections to the storyline.
She was educated at the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, before leaving school at 15 and working in Fortnum and Mason’s fashion department. She left to study drama at the Italia Conti Stage Academy in London.
Richard gained parts in the 1960s on shows The Newcomers, Dad's Army, Up Pompeii!and The Likely Lads. She also appeared in Carry Onfilms alongside fellow EastEnder Barbara Windsor.
Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, said: "I am enormously saddened by the news of Wendy's death. Her countless BBC appearances across decades, especially as Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and then as Pauline Fowler in EastEnders, lit up living rooms for millions of British families who regarded her as a member of the family. – (Reuters, PA)