Dame Barbara Windsor obituary: Carry On and EastEnders actress dies aged 83

Dame Barbara Windsor, the British star of nine Carry On films and EastEnders, has died at the age of 83.

Her husband Scott Mitchell said she had died peacefully from Alzheimer’s at a London care home on Thursday evening.

She had been diagnosed with the disease in 2014 and had moved to a care home earlier this year.

Born in Shoreditch in 1937, Babs started her acting career on stage and would later make an (uncredited) screen debut as a schoolgirl in the British comedy The Belles of St. Trinians (1954).

It wasn’t until 1960 that she finally received a proper credit when she played Ponytail in the crime-thriller Too Hot to Handle. According to IMDB, Windsor’s screentime was cut on the instructions of leading lady Jayne Mansfield.

After popping up in Flame on the Streets (1961), she then appeared in the war comedy On the Fiddle (1961) alongside the late, great Sir Sean Connery. She also made an impact on television in the early 60s when she played both Gloria and Judy in the Reg Varney-starring sitcom The Rag Trade (1961-63).

During that period, Windsor was lauded by her peers when she received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her performance as Maggie in the dark comedy Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963).

However, her film career soon took off when she was cast as Daphne Honeybutt in the popular comedy flick Carry on Spying (1964). From then on, she would go on to feature in a further eight Carry On films between 1967 and 1974 with most of her appearances consisting of playing the goodhearted yet dizzy sexpot.

The most memorable of those roles came in Carry on Camping (1969) where her character became involved in one of the most iconic moments in British film history.

Whilst working on the Carry On films, Windsor also divided time between other films and sitcoms which included a rare dramatic role in the crime thriller A Study of Terror (1965). She also popped up as stage sharpshooter Laura La Plaz in an early episode of Dad’s Army (1968) and a character named Blonde in the family musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).

Windsor also went on to feature in the likes of The Boy Friend (1971), Worzel Gummidge (1980), Comrades (1986), Filthy Rich & Catflap (1987), Bluebirds (1989) and an episode of One Foot in the Grave (1995).

During the 1990s, she became a household name again when she took on the iconic role of the Queen Vic’s landlady Peggy Mitchell in the hit soap EastEnders. The beloved character appeared in over 1500 episodes between 1994 and 2016 was best known for her memorable catchphrase “Get Outta Ma Pub!”.

She won Best Dramatic Performance at the British Soap Awards in 1999 and was later awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. Her last appearance in the soap came in 2016, the same year she was made a dame for her services to charity and entertainment.

Other roles towards the end of her career included appearing as herself in the Carry On biopic Cor Blimey! (2000) as well as voicing two different characters in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) and its sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016).

Rather fittingly, her last screen project came in 2017 when she played herself in Babs, a television biopic about her life.

Windsor is survived by her third husband but sadly never had any children.

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