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Happy 90th birthday June!

A very happy birthday to actress June Whitfield, who turns 90 today. Here we celebrate her career to date with a brief and selective jog through the listings and some photographs from the archive.

The star of stage, screen and the airwaves has been in showbusiness for seven decades, which means is very impressive. It starts with an uncredited role in TV programme , a 1951 look at 50 years of showbusiness.

June's first celebrated regular role was in sketch show The Glums, part of radio programme (above) which ran during the 1950s, carving out a penchant for comedy acting which can be traced down the decades.

This included a fruitful association with Tony Hancock, famously playing the nurse in The Blood Donor which was on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã.

June played alongside Sid James in 1960s radio sitcom It's A Deal

June also made an appearance in creation Steptoe and Son (above), playing a brassy gold digger chasing an unexpected windfall.

As colour television superceded black and white, June's career continued to develop, with a lead role in long-running two-hander (below) which was renowned for its gentle humour based largely around her screen husband Terry Scott's haplessness. The pair also worked together on the show's predecessor, Happy Ever After.

With the march of time, June has become renowned for her 'senior' roles, with the most celebrated as Mother in which first came to our screens in 1992. On the surface, her character seems to be an eccentric, batty nuisance to her daughter Edina, but comes out with some of the most withering put-downs. The actress is cast in the film version of the long-running comedy, due to be released next year.

As well as a stint in evergreen sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, one of June's most recent cameos was as a nun in EastEnders, who knows one of Kat Moon's darkest secrets. She is due to as the Moons return to Albert Square.

Happy 90th birthday to June Whitfield. Are there any of her other roles that stick in your memory? Please share them with us in the space at the bottom of this post.

Mother brings a dose of eccentric charm and wisdom to Ab Fab

Evergreen fun in Last of the Summer Wine

June as a secret-sharing nun in EastEnders

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