June Whitfield

June Rosemary Whitfield, CBE (born 11 November 1925) is an English actress, known in the United Kingdom since the 1950s for roles in radio and television comedy series.

Her first big break was a lead role in the radio comedy Take It From Here, and television followed, including appearances with Tony Hancock throughout his television career. In 1966, Whitfield played her first television sitcom role, in Beggar My Neighbour and this ran for two years. She also starred in several Carry On films.

In 1968 June Whitfield and Terry Scott began their long television partnership which peaked with roles as husband and wife in Happy Ever After and Terry and June. From 1992 to 2003 Whitfield appeared in Jennifer Saunders's sitcom Absolutely Fabulous and has played a regular character in Last of the Summer Wine as well as a recurring character in The Green Green Grass.

Early life

June Rosemary Whitfield was born in Streatham, London in 1925.^[1] She made her first stage appearance aged three after her mother enrolled her at a dance school.^[2] Whitfield attended Streatham Hill High School, before being evacuated in World War II to Bognor Regis where she attended St Michael's School and to Penzance in Cornwall. She then moved with her parents to Huddersfield where she learnt shorthand and typing. She then continued to study secretarial skills at Pitman's College, Brixton Hill.^[3] In 1944 Whitfield graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with a diploma.^[1] In 1955, June Whitfield married Tim Aitchison and they had one daughter, Suzy, who became an actress.^[1]

Early career

In 1951, June Whitfield had her first credited television role in The Passing Show, and she joined the London cast of South Pacific. Her big break came in 1953 when she replaced the emigrating Joy Nichols on the hit Muir and Norden radio comedy Take It From Here, co-starring Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley. She played 'Eth', fiancee of the dim Ron Glum (played by Bentley) in the portion of the show known as "The Glums".^[1] During the next 15 years Whitfield had many small roles on television, including appearances in The Tony Hancock Show, Hancock's Half Hour, Dixon of Dock Green, Arthur's Treasured Volumes, The Arthur Askey Show, Faces of Jim, Hancock, The Benny Hill Show, Steptoe and Son and Frankie Howerd. Her best remembered work with Tony Hancock is as the nurse in the opening scene of "The Blood Donor" (Hancock 1961). In 1959 Whitfield appeared in Carry On Nurse, the first of her four appearances in that film series.^[1]

Television fame

In 1966, Whitfield gained her first starring role, in the sitcom Beggar My Neighbour^[1] playing Rose Garvey. The year after Beggar My Neighbour finished in 1968, Whitfield then appeared on Scott On... for six years until 1974.^[4] This started a working relationship with Terry Scott that would last until 1987. During Scott On. .. she had also appeared in The Best Things In Life, The Goodies, The Dick Emery Show, Bless This House and The Pallisers. In 1972 she appeared in the Bless This House film, with Terry Scott as her husband, and Carry On Abroad, followed by an appearance in 1973 in Carry On Girls.^[1]

In 1974, Whitfield starred in a Comedy Playhouse sitcom pilot called Happy Ever After alongside Terry Scott. Later that year a first series of this was made, and it continued for five series until 1979. That year they appeared together in the first series of Terry and June. Happy Ever After and Terry and June were very similar programmes, with only a change of surname, from Fletcher to Medford, and a new house and family.^[5] Both sitcoms had Scott and Whitfield as a suburban middle-class married couple. Terry and June ran for 65 episodes until 1987. Five years later in 1992, Julian Clary created Terry and Julian, a Channel 4 sitcom which spoofed the title of Terry and June, and Whitfield made an appearance in one episode.^[6] During the eight-year run of Terry and June, Whitfield also appeared in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Minder.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Whitfield also appeared in a series of television advertisements, created for Birds Eye by advertising art director Vernon Howe, featuring the concluding voice-over line: ".. it can make a dishonest woman of you!".^[7]

During the 1980s, June Whitfield went back to radio. From 1984 she appeared with Roy Hudd on the satire programme The News Huddlines,^[1] which finished in 2001. On The News Huddlines she often impersonated people, and was known for her impersonation of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.^[1] During the 1980s and 1990s, June Whitfield made several stage appearances, including in a revival of An Ideal Husband and the pantomime Babes in the Wood.^[1] In 1982, Whitfield was made a Freeman of the City of London and was made an OBE in 1985.^[1][2]

Recent years

Having appeared in an episode of French & Saunders in 1988, from 1992 June Whitfield played Mother/Gran in Jennifer Saunders' sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, a role she continued until 2003. In 2000, she starred with the rest of the Absolutely Fabulous cast in the pilot Mirrorball. From 1993 to 2001, June Whitfield played Miss Marple in 12 radio adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books.^[6] Since 1990, she has appeared in films such as Carry On Columbus, Jude and Faeries, as the voice of Mrs. Combs. In 1998, Whitfield played the housekeeper in the London-set episode of Friends "The One with Ross's Wedding, Part Two"^[8] and voiced a character in an episode of the animated comedy series Rex the Runt.

In 1994 June Whitfield was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Comedy Awards,^[1] and in 1998 she was upgraded to a CBE.^[8] In 2000 she published her autobiography And June Whitfield (ISBN 0593045823). Whitfield's husband Tim Aitchison died in 2001.^[6] Since 2000, Whitfield has appeared in The Royal, Midsomer Murders, Marple, New Tricks and Last of the Summer Wine, which she joined in 2005. Whitfield had an episode of The South Bank Show devoted to her on 29 July 2007 and in the same year appeared in the ENO's production of On the Town in London's West End. In November 2007 she appeared in the Only Fools and Horses spin-off The Green Green Grass as the mother of Marlene.^[9] In 2008, Whitfield appeared in an episode of ITV medical drama, Harley Street, and in Kingdom in 2009.

Whitfield will be appearing in the 2009 Christmas specials of Doctor Who that will air over the Christmas/New Year period of 2009/2010.^[10]

References

External links

• June Whitfield at the Internet Movie Database