{"id":196006,"date":"2019-01-01T01:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T06:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=196006"},"modified":"2019-01-01T01:00:04","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T06:00:04","slug":"longtime-british-comedy-star-june-whitfield-dies-at-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/01\/01\/longtime-british-comedy-star-june-whitfield-dies-at-93\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime British comedy star June Whitfield dies at 93"},"content":{"rendered":"
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British actress and comedic star June Whitfield, whose long career included memorable roles in TV series \u201cAbsolutely Fabulous\u201d and \u201cTerry and June,\u201d has died. She was 93. (File Photo: June Whitfield\/IMDB<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONDON \u2014 British actress and comedic star June Whitfield, whose long career included memorable roles in TV series \u201cAbsolutely Fabulous\u201d and \u201cTerry and June,\u201d has died. She was 93.<\/p>\n

Her agent said that she died Friday night.<\/p>\n

Whitfield enjoyed a career spanning decades, appearing on some of Britain’s most popular TV shows and earning generations of fans drawn by her wide range and impeccable timing.<\/p>\n

She was prominent in the \u201cCarry On\u201d series and the sitcom \u201cTerry and June\u201d with Terry Scott in the ’80s before playing a vital role in \u201cAbsolutely Fabulous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her time on \u201cAb Fab\u201d playing the slightly odd mother of Jennifer Saunders’ boozy character Edina introduced Whitfield to fans who hadn’t been born when she started on radio decades earlier.<\/p>\n

Fellow \u201cAb Fab\u201d stars Saunders and Joanna Lumley praised Whitfield for the warmth and wit she brought to the hugely popular show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will always be grateful that she agreed to be in Ab Fab and even more grateful that she became a dear friend,\u201d Saunders said in a statement. \u201cShe lived and worked with an extraordinary grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lumley said she was \u201cheartbroken to lose such a darling friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitfield’s father was a telephone company executive and her mother an amateur actress. She once told The Telegraph newspaper she knew very early in life she wanted to be a performer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was never one moment when I decided,\u201d she said. \u201cI went to dancing classes and elocution classes and the appeal was simply that I loved it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

She trained at London’s renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and started her career in radio comedy in the 1950s, moving into TV as the new medium eclipsed radio.<\/p>\n

She received dozens of honours, including being made a \u201cDame,\u201d the female equivalent of a knighthood. She received the honour from Prince Charles in a Buckingham Palace ceremony in 2017.<\/p>\n

Her husband Tim Aitchison died in 2001. She is survived by their daughter, the actress Suzy Aitchison.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 British actress and comedic star June Whitfield, whose long career included memorable roles in TV series \u201cAbsolutely Fabulous\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":196007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","mauthors-gregory-katz","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}