A cause of death was not revealed.<\/p>\n
Dame Patricia Routledge (left) was best known for playing the overbearing, social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket, pronounced Bouquet, in the legendary BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Many of Routledge\u2019s fans took to X to pay tribute to the late acting legend.<\/p>\n
One person said: \u201cRIP Patricia Routledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn outstanding actress who was simply unforgettable as Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet).\u201d<\/p>\n
A second user wrote: \u201cSo devastated to hear the wonderful Dame Patricia Routledge has passed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cherish the afternoon we got to spend together just last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cA true icon known for Mrs Bouquet and Broadway.\u201d<\/p>\n
And a third fan penned: \u201cR.I.P. Dame Patricia Routledge, a wonderful woman and actress. Mrs Bucket (Bouquet) will live on forever!\u201d<\/p>\n
Routledge \u2013 who was born in Tranmere, Merseyside, in February 1929 \u2013 had many acting credits to her name.<\/p>\n
She made her professional stage debut at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1952 and her Broadway debut in How\u2019s the World Treating You in 1966.<\/p>\n
In 1968, Routledge won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in Darling of the Day.<\/p>\n
And in 1988, she claimed an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Candide.<\/p>\n
However, Routledge\u2019s most notable role came in 1990, playing Hyacinth Bucket \u2013 pronounced Bouquet \u2013 in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.<\/p>\n
The show \u2013 created and written by 95-year-old Roy Clarke \u2013 aired until 1995, and it followed Bucket trying to climb up the social ladder by impressing rich and successful people.<\/p>\n
However, it was her middle-class working family who held her back from achieving that.<\/p>\n
Pearl-wearing snob Bucket used to throw candlelight suppers and would call people on her and her husband Richard\u2019s (Clive Swift\u2019s) white slimline telephone.<\/p>\n
And Bucket quickly became an iconic character on British – and global – television.<\/p>\n
Speaking in a talk at the Derby Theatre in 2024, Routledge said she received letters from fans of the show \u2013 almost three decades after it ended.<\/p>\n
The star \u2013 who won a British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Actress for her performance on Keeping Up Appearances \u2013 said: \u201cI get letters still from all over the world even though we made the last series in 1995.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a letter from a lad of nine or 10 a few weeks ago saying how much the family enjoy it and watch it together.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018My dad\u2019s been laughing at a woman like you across the road for years.\u2019 Wonderful.<\/p>\n
\u201cFans in America still hold candlelight suppers (infamously organised by Hyacinth in the TV series) and invite me.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople like it because there\u2019s no smut.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2004, the late Queen Elizabeth presented Routledge with an MBE at Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n
And in 2017, Routledge was made a Dame thanks to her services to entertainment and charity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cause of death was not revealed. Dame Patricia Routledge (left) was best known for playing the overbearing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48786,18919,48785,2947,6179,7126,42,3218,29137,43,1118,48783,48784,2737,40,38,41,39,810],"class_list":["post-58810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-48786","tag-aged","tag-appearances","tag-dame","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-headlines","tag-icon","tag-keeping","tag-news","tag-of","tag-patricia","tag-routledge","tag-star","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}