From playing social climber Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life to aristocrat Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To The Manor Born, Penelope Keith, who has died aged 86, was known for her snobby yet lovable and humorous characters.
Born on April 2 1940, the actress’s own early years as a young child growing up in Clapham, south London, were somewhat urban, though she was sent to boarding school in the coastal town of Seaford, East Sussex, aged six.
Penelope Keith on the set of The Good Life
It was as a schoolgirl that she discovered a love of performing, and she went on to study at London’s Webber Douglas Academy Of Dramatic Art, having reportedly been rejected from the Central School Of Speech And Drama for being too tall at around 5ft 10ins.
She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early 1960s, and in 1975, landed her big TV break in well-loved BBC sitcom The Good Life, as Margo, alongside co-star Felicity Kendal.
Penelope Keith pictured in 1976 / Photo credit: PA Wire
Across four series and 30 episodes, Margo was regularly peeved by her friendly, yet lower class neighbours in Surbiton, Barbara (Kendal) and Tom Good (Richard Briers), often leaving her husband Jerry Leadbetter (Paul Eddington) to apologise.
She won a BAFTA in 1977 for her role in the series, which eventually saw her character revealed to have a heart of gold.
In the first episode, she was heard but not seen, but her presence increased as the show went on.
Another hit, To The Manor Born, in which she played the widowed aristocrat Audrey, followed soon after, and Keith also put her recognisable voice to good use as the narrator for children’s show Teletubbies and in adverts for everything from Pimm’s to Parker Pens.
Penelope Keith, named Show Business Personality of 1976 by the Variety Club of Great Britain and John Inman chosen a joint BBC TV Personality for the series Are You Being Served /
Photo credit: PA Wire
In To The Manor Born, her character Audrey is forced to sell her vast country estate, Grantleigh Manor, after the death of her husband.
She moves into the estate’s modest lodge house but manages to keep her butler and Rolls-Royce.
From the lodge she can keep an eye on new owner and nouveau riche supermarket millionaire Richard DeVere, played by Peter Bowles.
The comedy star also appeared in sitcoms Executive Stress, No Job For A Lady and Next Of Kin, and won a Bafta for a TV adaptation of The Norman Conquests, in a role she reprised after a run on stage.
In recent years, she returned to the theatre, taking on roles such as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit and Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest.
Felicity Kendal, Richard Briers, Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith, pictured on the set of The Good Life, in 1978.
She was also involved in several charities, including the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, taking on the role of president following the death of Laurence Olivier in 1989, and also worked with prison organisation KeepOut and the National Memorial Arboretum.
Her contribution to the arts and charity was recognised with a damehood in the 2014 New Year Honours list, and while she would never insist on being addressed as Dame Penelope, she once admitted with a laugh that “it’s lovely when people do”.
In her later years she was “firmly rooted in the country”, living in Surrey with her husband, former police officer Rodney Timson, and their two cats and two dogs.
The couple, who have two adopted sons, wed in 1978 after meeting at a Chichester theatre, where Keith was performing and Timson was on duty.
Asked years later whether their marriage felt like four decades together, she remarked to the Press Association: “I don’t think so. When you get older, as we always say, it’s always Friday and it’s always Christmas – time just goes so quickly and you have to make the most of it.”
She said that the secret to a successful marriage is “home-made marmalade”.
Despite being busy with TV, theatre and charity work, unlike her Good Life character Margo, who was more interested in soirees and social climbing than spades and shrubbery, Keith’s biggest pastime was gardening.
She once said: “Margo didn’t like gardening, but I get my hands dirty, very dirty.”
She indulged her passion and pride in the great British outdoors in the More4 documentary Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages, which saw her visit some of the country’s best-loved villages and reflect on rural life.
However, she was not keen on the internet and social media, such as X, once saying that she believes people are “too bound up with computers” these days and adding that emails had been keeping her from the garden.
She said: “I got an email this morning that I’ve got to go through, and I think, ‘oh dear, I’d sooner be in my garden’.
“We must remember that the internet and technology is our servant not our master. I’m afraid it’s taking over, isn’t it?”
Source: Press Association