{"id":768016,"date":"2026-06-29T15:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/768016\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T15:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:19:13","slug":"to-the-manor-born-star-dame-penelope-keith-dead-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/768016\/","title":{"rendered":"‘To the Manor Born’ star Dame Penelope Keith dead at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran British actress Dame Penelope Keith, who rose to fame in the hit 1970s UK sitcom “The Good Life”, has died aged 86, her family said.<\/p>\n

Dame Penelope, who was made a dame in Britain in 2014, established herself as a household name through her decades-spanning comedic roles on television, in film, radio and theatre.<\/p>\n

Her family said she had “died peacefully” at home after battling cancer.<\/p>\n

\"Actress<\/p>\n

Penelope Keith was made a Dame Commander for services to the Arts and to charity in 2014. (Reuters: Andrew Matthews)<\/p>\n

“The family is grateful for the care and support she received throughout her treatments,” they said.<\/p>\n

Dame Penelope first major break was as the snobbish suburbanite Margot Leadbetter in “The Good Life”, which earned her a BAFTA award.<\/p>\n

She later starred in “To The Manor Born”, another hit BBC sitcom.<\/p>\n

The British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) organisation said it was saddened to learn of Dame Penelope’s passing, in a post on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Actress<\/p>\n

Dame Penelope Keith won two BAFTAs and an Olivier award during her career. (Reuters: Luke MacGregor)<\/p>\n

“A familiar face on stage and screen, Dame Penelope won a BAFTA for her iconic role in The Good Life in 1977 and another for her work in The Norman Conquests and Saving It For Albie in 1978, with a further three BAFTA nominations during her career,” it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Laurence Olivier Awards also paid tribute to the actor, announcing the lights of West End theatres will be dimmed for two minutes on July 1 following the passing of the “beloved” performer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Dame Penelope began her acting career in repertory theatre and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963,” the organisation said.<\/p>\n

“She went on to win the 1976 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for the play Donkeys’ Years.”<\/p>\n

AFP\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran British actress Dame Penelope Keith, who rose to fame in the hit 1970s UK sitcom “The Good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,18203,447,53378,134,365518,365515,55100,365516,365517,37283],"class_list":["post-768016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bafta","tag-celebrities","tag-dame","tag-entertainment","tag-laurence-olivier-awards","tag-penelope-keith","tag-shakespeare","tag-the-good-life","tag-to-the-manor-born","tag-west-end"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}