Tributes to ‘brilliant’ sitcom star June
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE AND TERRY AND JUNE ACTOR STAYED IN TOWN TO ESCAPE THE BLITZ
VETERAN actress and Last of the Summer Wine star June Whitfield has died, aged 93.
Tributes from the entertainment world have poured in for Dame June who also had starring roles in Terry and June and Absolutely Fabulous.
As well as appearing as Nellie in Last of the Summer Wine which was filmed in Holmfirth, June had other Huddersfield connections.
Her father was John Whitfield who owned the family department store Whitfield’s in Ramsden Street.
And while she was born and brought up in London, she lived in Huddersfield to escape the blitz during the Second World War.
During the filming of Last of the Summer Wine, June and other stars of the sitcom stayed at Central Lodge Hotel, Kirkgate.
Hotel owner Joe Marsden, who runs the hotel with his brother Johnny, said how down to earth June was.
Joe said: “You would think she was a local lady.
“She liked to be accepted as a member of a team doing a great programme.
“She didn’t want to be made special.”
Joe added: “She said: ‘Joe, just look after me and I will be right, lad.’”
He also recalled another story about when June stayed at his hotel.
Joe said: “She came back to our place after dinner in a local restaurant with a bottle of their wine and asked me if there would be a ‘corkage charge’.
“I said: ‘No, Miss Whitfield’ because it has a screw top. We shared the wine the next evening!”
Tributes to June, whose career spanned seven decades, flooded in from the entertainment world.
Those included a tribute from Absolutely Fabulous co-star Joanna Lumley.
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.”
Comedy actor David Walliams also paid tribute tweeting: “[Her] incredible career in British comedy stretched all the way from ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ to ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. She was always there, always being brilliant.”
Born in Streatham, London, in 1925, June started her career in radio in the 1940s before getting her big break when she replaced Joy Nichols on Muir and Norden radio comedy, Take It From Here, in 1953.
She soon moved over to T V, notching up parts in Dixon of Dock Green, The Benny Hill Show and Steptoe and Son, followed by
an appearance in Carry On Nurse in 1959 – the first of four Carry On movies she would star in.
June – who was appointed a dame at Buckingham Palace last year for her services to drama and entertainment – scored her first starring role as Rose Garvey in 1966’s Beggar My Neighbour.
But perhaps her most lifechanging role was in 1968 sketch show Scott On... where she met her future collaborator Terry Scott.
Their television partnership saw them play husband and wife Terry and June Fletcher in Happy Ever After from 1974 to 1978, and again in Terry and June which aired for eight years until 1987.
Meanwhile, her impeccable comedy timing made her a perfect regular for Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders’ sketch show, French and Saunders, which led to her being cast in Saunders’ Absolutely Fabulous in 1992.
Latterly, she featured in The Royal, Midsomer Murders, Agatha Christie’s Marple, New Tricks and Last of the Summer Wine.
More tributes – Page 15