Tributes have poured in for late EastEnders actress June Brown who played Dot Cotton on the BBC soap
(Picture: Ian West/PA)June Brown, the British acting legend, has died aged 95. You probably know her for her role as Dot Cotton/Branning in EastEnders which she played for thirty years, but even if you never watched an episode – and we don’t quite know why this is the case – but it’s likely that she nevertheless has a place in your heart.
Over the course of her staggering 2,884 episodes on the soap, Brown became more than a household name. A sort of a British Audrey Hepburn meets Auntie Mame – and before you baulk, emphasis on the British, and on the sort of – she was charming in a manner reminiscent of your eccentric and aloof Grandma.
Brown was born in Suffolk, evacuated to Wales in the Second World War, became a Wren, and was descended from Isaac Bitton, the Jewish bare-knuckle boxer; two of her own siblings died when they were young.
Although she was best known for being Dot, she also acted in Coronation Street, Doctor Who, The Bill, Survivors, acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was part of dozens of theatre productions including Calendar Girls, Rebecca, An Inspector Calls and Macbeth.
After a long acting career, Brown joined EastEnders in her fifties, when she played gossip-loving, chain-smoking Dot. Highlights (in fact, very much lowlights) for Dot included being held as a hostage, confusing herbal tea for cannabis, helping her friend Ethel take her own life, going to court for shoplifting, looking after an abandoned baby, nursing her boyfriend who suffered a stroke, recovering from kidney cancer, and not calling the ambulance on her dying son, despite his request for help.
She was awarded an OBE in 2008, a TV Choice Award for Best Actress in 2000, two Inside Soap Awards for Best Actress and a BAFTA Television Award for actress in a leading role in 2009 – only the second person to ever win the accolade for their work in a soap. The first was Jean Alexander who played Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street and also died as a nonagenarian.
Over the course of these thirty dramatic years, Dot left and returned to Albert Square numerous times. But it was in 2020 that Brown decided to leave for good, saying in a Distinct Nostalgia podcast in February that year that Dot would stay in Ireland. In the podcast the actress said she had made up a dirty limerick about her departure which she recited:
“I went back to do a good story. Alas and alack, when I got back it had gone up in smoke...Well that is no joke. I got a small part, a very small part. And that ended up as a big wet fart. Alas and alack, I will never go back.” Ok, then!
But Brown has become so beloved over time that it’s likely that even if you are not an EastEnders fan you will still be familiar with her. These days she frequently graces the feed of the Love of Huns Instagram page, as every clip of Dot seems to accurately encapsulate the mood of the British public: when she dramatically closes her computer, cigarette in hand, of course, for example, Dot is the British public opening – and closing – its emails after the Christmas break.
If you haven’t made it to Love of Huns yet – and we recommend a peek - you may have seen her in that now-infamous Graham Norton 2013 interview, when Lady Gaga became totally enamored with the actress.
Brown, in a Narcissa Malfoy/ Susan Sontag updo, is wearing a set of pearls, red tights to match her red top, a tiny clutch, and is holding an e-cigarette that has pink lipstick stains around the end. Gaga, who is wearing an understated black peacock headdress, is literally obsessed with Brown. It’s a smashing pairing. Despite Jude Law sitting adjacent on the couch the interview becomes all about Brown.
Of her passing an EastEnders spokesperson said: "There are not enough words to describe how much June was loved and adored by everyone at EastEnders, her loving warmth, wit and great humour will never be forgotten.” We’ve lost a true television legend.
