Eternal Queen of Albert Square
JUNE Brown became a national treasure playing downtrodden Dot Cotton in the BBC soap EastEnders, but the finely-tuned skills she employed in that role were learnt the hard way, in her youth on the stage.
Born in Needham Market, Suffolk, into a wealthy family she excelled at Latin and maths at school but joined theWrens during the Second World War.
She worked as a projectionist for training films for airmen and after the war used a naval grant to study drama at the OldVic school.
While touring with the Young Vic she mastered Shakespearean drama, playing Portia in The Merchant Of Venice. In rep she played Lady Macbeth and Hedda Gabler and joined the Royal Court.
As television dramas boomed, she played many roles in longrunning series, including The Sweeney, Dixon Of Dock Green, DrWho and Minder.
In Coronation Street she played a character called Mrs Parsons in 1970.When EastEnders was launched in 1985, she became instantly popular as Dot, holding court at the launderette.
She took a four-year break in the 1990s, complaining that harridan Dot had become too inoffensive, but in 2008 she made soap history by single-handedly holding an entire episode.
Dot gave a monologue for her stroke-ridden husband to listen to in hospital, which earned June a Bafta nomination.
She left EastEnders in 2020 after 35 years, with a subdued storyline in which Dot left a voicemail message saying she’d decided to live in Ireland.A keen spiritualist in her private life, June smoked 40 cigarettes a day but kept in good health for most of her life.
She had six children and married twice. Her first husband, John Garley, took his own life and her second husband, Robert Arnold, died in 2003.