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Dame June Whitfield, star of Ab Fab and Terry and June, dies aged 93
Dame June Whitfield, who delighted television and radio audiences for seven decades, has died aged 93.
The comic actress enjoyed a career stretching back to the 1940s, including roles in the Carry On films and the sitcoms Terry And June and Absolutely Fabulous.
She was made a dame in the 2017 Birthday Honours for her services to drama and entertainment in a career spanning eight decades.
Dame June’s agent said on Saturday that she “passed away peacefully” on Friday night.
The star is well known for playing the mother of Jennifer Saunders' character Edina Monsoon in the hit BBC show Absolutely Fabulous.
Dame June also appeared in numerous Radio 4 productions during her career, and played Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.
She was granted an OBE at the 1985 Birthday Honours, and was made a CBE in 1998.
Tributes to her long and successful career in comedy were quick to come in from fellow stars last night. Impressionist Rory Bremner said: “From Sixties radio to Seventies, Eighties, even Nineties TV. Always graceful and elegant with a real comic glint in her eye and (absolutely) fabulous timing.”
Her Absolutely Fabulous co-star on the show Julia Sawalha paid a touching tribute to her friend and teacher in an online post, tenderly calling the late actress "Gran".
Joanna Lumley has described herself as "heartbroken" at the news of her friend's passing.
Fellow Ab Fab actress Lumley appeared on ITV news to share her sadness at the death of her co-star.
She said: "I am heartbroken to lose such a darling friend and shall never forget her sensational talent, humour and her generosity to us all who had the joy of working with her on Ab Fab.
"She will always have a most special place in my heart."
Actress and comedian Miranda Hart tweeted to say that Dame June's death was "so very sad" and that the star had sponsored one of Hart’s first performances at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Hart, said: “Fifteen years later when I met her she had all my letters and the notes of the show she sponsored. I cried then too."
Jon Plowman, the television producer, who worked with Dame June on Absolutely Fabulous and the 2016 film version, tweeted to say he was “very sad”.
“There was no one with more warmth or a better ability to just ‘place’ a line, always an act of utter precision. Hit after hit! Take It From Here, Terry And June, Absolutely Fabulous over seven decades. A great loss,” he said.
Dame June was born in Streatham, south London, in 1925 and was evacuated from the capital during the Second World War.
She graduated from the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art prior to the end of the conflict, and her career in entertainment began with West End stage work.
Dame June went on to establish herself as a constant presence in British post-war comedy and was praised for her roles as the female companion to some of the era’s most famous entertainers.
She often described herself as a “comic’s tart”, but she established herself in a star as her own right, featuring in more than 1,300 radio and television shows across her long career.
Dame June met her husband Tim Aitchison in the 1950s. The pair went on to have a daughter, Suzy, who followed in her mother's footsteps and became an actress.
She called her autobiography ...and June Whitfield, in a nod to fact that she always got second billing.
"The greatest of show business mysteries," Denis Norden once said, "was how anyone could contemplate doing a comedy show without June Whitfield."
Whitfield made her first stage appearance at the age of three. Her first big break came on radio when she appeared in Take It From Here before she made her first appearance in 1968 on Terry Scott’s sketch show Scott On.
The two had a long partnership on screen, with five years as a married couple in Happily Ever After and eight more years in Terry And June.
Shane Allen, controller of BBC Comedy, said: "June Whitfield was the North Star of British
"She was the go-to female comedy performer of her generation and was always in demand from the cream of British comedy."