Television Fame
In 1966 Whitfield gained her first starring role, in the sitcom Beggar My Neighbour playing Rose Garvey. The year after Beggar My Neighbour finished in 1968, Whitfield appeared on Scott On... for six years until 1974. This started a working relationship with Terry Scott that lasted until 1987. During Scott On. .. she had also appeared in The Best Things In Life, The Goodies, The Dick Emery Show, Bless This House and The Pallisers. In 1972, she appeared in the Bless This House film, with Terry Scott as her husband, and Carry On Abroad, followed by a 1973 appearance in Carry On Girls.
In 1974 Whitfield starred in a Comedy Playhouse sitcom pilot called Happy Ever After again alongside Scott. Later that year a first series of this was made, and it continued for five series until 1979. That year they appeared together in the first series of Terry and June. Happy Ever After and Terry and June were very similar, with only a change of surname, from Fletcher to Medford, and a new house and family. Both sitcoms had Scott and Whitfield as a suburban middle-class married couple. Terry and June ran for 65 episodes until 1987. Five years later in 1992, Julian Clary created Terry and Julian, a Channel 4 sitcom which spoofed the title of Terry and June, and Whitfield made an appearance in one episode. During the eight-year run of Terry and June, Whitfield also appeared in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Minder.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Whitfield also appeared in a series of television advertisements, created for Birds Eye by advertising art director Vernon Howe, featuring the concluding voice-over line: ".. it can make a dishonest woman of you!"
In 1971 Whitfield recorded, with Frankie Howerd, a comedy version of the song "Je t'aime, originally made famous by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, in which she featured as "Mavis".
During the 1980, Whitfield returned to radio comedy. From 1984, she could be heard with Roy Hudd on the satire programme The News Huddlines, which finished in 2001. On it she often used impersonations and was known for her impression of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. During the 1980s and 1990s, Whitfield made several stage appearances, including in a revival of An Ideal Husband and the pantomime Babes in the Wood. In 1985 she sang a duet with Ian Charleson of the Irving Berlin song "You're Just in Love" in A Royal Night of One Hundred Stars. In 1982 she was made a Freeman of the City of London and was made an OBE in 1985.
Read more about this topic: June Whitfield
Famous quotes containing the words television and/or fame:
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—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
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