Legendary UK actor Dame Penelope Keith, best known for The Good Life and To the Manor Born, has died.
Legendary UK actor Dame Penelope Keith, best known for The Good Life and To the Manor Born, has died, aged 86.
Her family said in a statement, “We are deeply saddened to announce that Dame Penelope Keith died peacefully whilst living with cancer at her home in Surrey where she had lived for more than 50 years.
“The family is grateful for the care and support she received throughout her treatments, and ask that their privacy be respected at this time.”
Penelope Keith began her career working in repertory theatre before joining the Royal Shakespeare company in 1963. She wrote “what felt like hundreds” of letters to the BBC asking to audition.
Her television career with appearances in programmes such as The Army Game, Dixon of Dock Green, Wild, Wild Women and The Avengers.
But she became a household name playing Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life from 1975. In the first episode, she was only heard and not seen but as the series went on her role increased. It led to her first BAFTA TV Award.
From 1979 to 1981, she played the lead role of Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in the TV series To the Manor Born.
Her other credits included Executive Stress, No Job for a Lady, Next of Kin, Teletubbies, Death Comes to Pemberley, The Norman Conquests (another BAFTA) and as host of What’s My Line?
Film credits included Carry On Doctor (scenes cut), Rentadick, Ghost Story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Priest of Love.
This century, working largely in theatre, she played Madame Arcati in a 2004 production of Blithe Spirit and Lady Bracknell in a 2007 version of The Importance of Being Earnest. She also hosted travel series Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages for Channel 4.
In 1992 she visited Australia and filmed a famous commercial for Heinz soup, filmed at the historic Schramm’s Cottage in Doncaster East. A hand double was used to dish out the soup with a ladel because Penelope Keith’s hands “don’t photogaph well.” Rumour has it NIDA even used Dame Penelope’s accent as the benchmark for Aussie actors performing Shakespeare.
She was also President of Britain’s Actors’ Benevolent Fund. She was a made a Dame in 2014 for services to the arts and charity.
Source: BBC, Wikipedia, Doncaster Historical Society