Actress Wendy Richard Dies From Cancer
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Wendy Richard MBE (born Wendy Emerton 20 July 1943 – 26 February 2009) was an English actress best known for playing Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and Pauline Fowler in EastEnders. She was first educated at St George's primary school in Mount Street, before attending the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, and then at the Italia Conti Academy stage school in London. She died on 26 February 2009 at the Harley Street Clinic, where she was being treated for breast cancer.
Career
She first became familiar to TV audiences playing Joyce Harker, a regular in the BBC's 1960s soap opera, The Newcomers. She has also appeared in Dad's Army (first as Edith Parrish, and later as Private Walker's girl-friend Shirley), Up Pompeii! and The Likely Lads. Richard also appeared in two Carry On films, playing a cameo role in Carry On Matron and a supporting part in Carry On Girls (which also featured future EastEnders co-star, Barbara Windsor). In 1962, her distinct cockney vocals also helped get her to #1 on the UK singles chart — uncredited, on the single, "Come Outside", by Mike Sarne. She also appears in a scene cut from the released version of The Beatles movie Help! (1965). Her scene though is on the special features DVD.
Richard's first appearance in a television series was as a teenager in Stranger on the Shore which debuted in 1961. The theme tune of the series was the Acker Bilk clarinet solo of the same name. She also had a bit part in a 1965 episode ("Don't Nail Him Yet") of Danger Man (aka Secret Agent) with Patrick McGoohan.Wendy Richard's first soap role was as teenage supermarket till girl Joyce Harker in "The Newcomers" which ran on BBC1 from 1965 to 1969. She is probably best known for her role in the 1970s sitcom Are You Being Served? as Miss Shirley Brahms, a sales representative with a heavy Cockney accent. (Richard also appeared in the Are You Being Served? sequel Grace & Favour in 1992 and 1993.)
Richard subsequently found continued success as heroine and matriarch Pauline Fowler on the BBC soap opera EastEnders, a role she played from the first episode in 1985 until the character's death at Christmas of 2006. On July 10, 2006, the BBC announced that Richard had decided to leave EastEnders, after nearly 22 years in the show. An interview with The Sun revealed that problems with the EastEnders storyline (primarily Pauline's marriage to Joe Macer) was the main cause for her departure. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2000 Queen's Birthday Honours.
In 2004, Richard was referred to as "the worst wanker of them all" during Leslie Grantham's now notorious webcam chat to an undercover reporter.
In late 2006, Richard was seen as a guest presenter on the BBC's City Hospital series and on March 31, 2007, she presented the documentary A tribute to John Inman, for BBC2.
She had also given interviews for the first time in a number of years, making appearances on Big Brother's Little Brother, Loose Women, Parkinson and the Biography Channel special Gloria's Greats with Gloria Hunniford amongst others.
In April 2007, Richard announced that she would be appearing in a new role for the first time since leaving Eastenders, playing a part in a new Sitcom penned by David Croft called Here Comes The Queen. The project came about after she personally asked her good friend Croft to write something for her. Richard had commented that "the part is like an older version of Miss Brahms".
In September 2007, it was announced that Richard was to join the second series of ITV1's Sitcom Benidorm playing a “loud-mouthed, rude” wheelchair-bound character.
In 2007, Richard was awarded a British Soap Award for 'Lifetime Achievement' for her role in Eastenders.
In January 2008, adverts for The Post Office featuring Richard (as a human cannonball) began to be shown.
In February 2008, she landed the role of Mrs. Crump in the episode "A Pocket Full of Rye" of the Marple TV series starring Julia McKenzie.
Source: Wikipedia
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