June Brown, MBE

June Muriel Brown, MBE (born 16 February 1927) is an English actress, best known for her role as Dot Cotton in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders. In 2005, she won Best Actress at the British Soap Awards and also received the Lifetime Achievement award at the same ceremony. In 2009, she was nominated for Best Actress at the BAFTA TV Awards. She is only the second performer to receive a BAFTA nomination for their work in a soap opera (the first was Jean Alexander). She was made a MBE in the 2008 Queens Birthday Honours.

June was born in Suffolk in 1927, the daughter of Louisa Ann (née Butler) and Henry William Melton Brown. She was one of five children, although her baby brother died of pneumonia in 1932, aged 15 days, and her elder sister, Marise, died in 1934, aged eight, from a meningitis-like illness. Other than English, she has Irish, Scottish, Italian and Sephardic Jewish descent from Oran, Algeria. On her maternal grandmother's side June is descended from the Jewish bare knuckle boxer Isaac Bitton. She was educated at St John's Church of England school in Ipswich and then won a scholarship to Ipswich High School where she passed the school certificate examinations. During the Second World War, she was evacuated to Pontyates, a village in Wales. During the later years of the war, she served in the Wrens (Royal Navy), and was classically trained at The Old Vic Theatre School.

At 23, she met and married actor John Garley; he suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1957. In 1958, she married Robert Arnold, a regular in the BBC television programme Dixon of Dock Green. They had six children, though her second daughter, Chloe (b. 1960) born prematurely at 28 weeks, died after 16 days. The other children are Louise (b. 1959), Sophie (b. 1961), William/Bill (b. 1962), Chloe (b. 1964), and Naomi (b. 1966). Chloe suffered paralysis, but Brown is reported as saying that it went away after she prayed for healing. Brown and Arnold were together for forty-five years, until he died in 2003 of Lewy Body dementia. Since then she has lived alone in their house in Surrey.

Film and television career

Brown has had a long television career, with small roles in Coronation Street as Mrs Parsons (1970); in the Play for Today, Edna, the Inebriate Woman as Clara (1971); in the Doctor Who story "The Time Warrior" as Lady Eleanor (1973/74); medical soap Angels; history-of-Britain Churchill's People; long-running comedy drama Minder; police drama soap The Bill; and cult sci-fi series Survivors. She also had a bigger part as Mrs Leyton in the very popular costume drama The Duchess of Duke Street (1976), and played Mrs Mann in Oliver Twist (1985).

She has also starred in the wartime big band comedy Ain't Misbehavin (1997), and played Nanny Slagg in the BBC's big-budget production of Gormenghast in 2000. She had a number of small roles in several famous movies, appearing as the grieving mother of an undead biker in British horror flick Psychomania (1971), as well as Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Sitting Target (1972), The 14 (1973), Murder by Decree (1979), Nijinsky (1980), The Mambo Kings (1992) and the hugely successful Mr. Bean movie spin-off Bean (1997). She also appeared as Tom Hedden's wife in the controversial Straw Dogs (1971), though her scenes were cut from the film.

In 1984, she featured in the TV mini-series Lace which starred actress Phoebe Cates.

She also starred in a 1968 TV film called Gentle To Nora and had her very first acting role in 1952 in the movie "It Started In Paradise", she played an uncredited announcer. In 2006, Brown appeared as Aunt Spiker at the Children's Party At The Palace, an all-star event to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday. In 2010 Brown took part in the annual Christmas special for Strictly Come Dancing. Brown said "I'm terrified and apprehensive about what I've let myself in for, I must be barmy and I'm not sure what's come over me… I just hope I can remember the steps to the routines. I'm looking forward to working with the professional dancers and the other contestants." Her dancing partner was Vincent Simone, with whom she danced the tango. She was the oldest contestant in the show so far.

In July 2012 Brown hosted a documentary for the BBC called Respect Your Elders, which looked at society's treatment and attitudes towards the elderly.

She is a supporter of the Conservative Party, and told an interviewer for The Guardian newspaper: "I wouldn't vote Labour, dear, if you paid me. I vote Conservative".

June Brown explored her Sephardic Jewish ancestry on Who Do You Think You Are? in season 8 of the United Kingdom broadcast.

Links:

• Wikipedia