EastEnders star’s shock d.e.a.t.h after double family tragedy – as tributes paid
Legendary EastEnders star June Brown, who played Dot Cotton in the BBC soap, sadly passed away at the age of 95 after experiencing devastating tragedy of her own
June in EastEnders early days alongside Peter Dean (Pete Beale) and Michelle Collins (Cindy Beale)(Image: The People)
An EastEnders star who left fans devastated with her passing experienced her own share of suffering in her life. June Brown, who famously played Dot Cotton in the soap for an incredible 35 years, died aged 95 on this day in 2022 (3 April). And the double tragedy she went through during her childhood shaped her entire existence.
Now fresh tributes have been paid to the actress, three years after her d.e.a.t.h. On a Facebook tribute page, one fan remembered June saying: “Phenomenonal actress! About the only actor (apart from Paul Bradly) in East Enders that has been able to do drama and comedy – as required – brilliantly.” Another person also commented on Brown’s acting prowess: “She was a really eastender great actress both funny and serious acting. Always in our hearts but never forgotten.”
And a third said they had hoped for June to be made a Dame: “I wished she did get damehood. The cast and crew campaigned for her to get honored. She got an OBE before she passed. But it’s a testament to her character as an actress and colleague of how much she was beloved and respected. She wanted to be like Dame Peggy Ashcroft but she succeeded far more than she realized. She accomplished a legacy in creating the beloved Dot Cotton, a character that became a British cultural icon missed to this day.”
The EastEnders star said she felt guilty about her husband’s suicide in her autobiography, Before The Year Dot(Image: BBC)
Born in Needham Market, Suffolk, in February 1927, June was one of five children to her parents Henry William Melton Brown and Louisa Ann. Heartbreakingly, her younger brother John Peter died from pneumonia merely 15 days after his birth. Just two years later, further tragedy struck the family when June’s elder sister Marise died aged only eight from complications after meningitis.
In her poignant 2013 autobiography, Before The Year Dot, June reflected on how the loss of her big sister nearly 80 years earlier continued to impact her life. “Had antibiotics been available, there would have been no operation, she would not have died and my life would have been quite different,” she said. “The loss of her affected my whole character and shaped the way I behaved for a long time. In particular, it influenced my expectations of men. Too dependent, I found it impossible to be happy alone.
“I was constantly in and out of love, always looking for the kind of caring that Micie had given me – the wholehearted acceptance of me just as I was. I kept looking for the friend I had lost.” Marise, who June affectionately nicknamed Micie, was laid to rest in an Ipswich cemetery, sharing a grave with her brother John Peter, who had passed away in infancy.
June – who longed for a companion in her final years – wrote: “I can’t remember a time when Marise wasn’t there (she was sixteen months older than me). ‘Junie, quick, get the cotton wool and the olive oil.’ My sister Micie (my name for her) woke me one morning in June 1934. I was seven.
“She was sitting up beside me in the bed that we shared in the big attic of our flat over Father’s electrical business. Ironically, considering Father’s business, the attic had no electric light and we had to go to bed by candlelight.
“I ran to the bathroom to fetch the olive oil and cotton wool – a panacea for earache. I did not think to wake my mother. Micie was put into my parents’ bed. I wasn’t aware Micie was very ill. A few days later, I came home from school and she wasn’t there.”
Marise had been rushed to hospital for a mastoid operation behind the ear, and tragically, June never set eyes on her again.
(Image: BBC)
June went on: “My mother did tell me later how dreadful it was to hear Micie cry out as the dressings packing the wound behind her ear were replaced. Whether an infection was introduced through this, I don’t know, but Micie developed meningitis, became paralysed and, a few days later, she died.
“Had she lived, she would have been paralysed. Yet, Mother said just before she died she suddenly sat up in bed, held out her arms and smiled.” June recalled that she and Marise bore a striking resemblance to one another, both sharing round faces, short dark hair and large eyes, making it virtually impossible to distinguish between them. The two sisters also shared a bedroom.
June was evacuated during the Second World War to the Welsh village of Pontyates in Carmarthenshire, where she later went on to serve in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRENS).
Rather than harbouring ambitions of becoming an actress, it was actually one of her sisters who persuaded her to audition for the Old Vic theatre school.
Opening up to The Mirror in February 2017, June said: “I never wanted to be an actress. I wanted to go into the medical professional. Acting was not important enough. That was a hobby – nothing to do with what you did in life.
“In the end it was all chance, most of life is chance. My sister happened to look at The Times, and there was advertised the Old Vic theatre school. I wrote, I suppose, and got an audition. They said I was in, so I burst into tears, because in those days I cried when I was happy and I cried when I was sad.” Before cementing her status as an EastEnders icon, June actually landed a role in rival soap Coronation Street back in 1970, in one of her earliest television appearances.
She portrayed Mrs Parsons, the mother of young Tony Parsons, who received harmonium lessons from Ena Sharples (Violet Carson), featuring across three episodes.
June also made several notable guest appearances on television, including in the long-running BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who, where she played Lady Eleanor of Wessex in the 1973 serial The Time Warrior, alongside Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor.
She also graced the screens in classic cop drama The Sweeney, Minder, The Bill, BBC post-apocalyptic series Survivors, and the 1985 television adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
Yet it is her legendary portrayal of Dot on EastEnders – from the show’s very first year in 1985 – that will remain her most enduring legacy.
June and family at her home in 1967(Image: REX/Shutterstock)
What was initially intended as a brief stint turned into one of the longest-running careers in EastEnders history, after June won over the show’s bosses with her outstanding performance.
June remained a cornerstone of the soap for 35 years, before announcing her permanent departure in February 2020, leaving fans heartbroken that Dot never received a fitting farewell.
Dot departed Walford after wrongly believing Martin Fowler had stolen her savings, when it was actually her granddaughter Sonia who was responsible. In her final scenes, she left a tearful voicemail revealing she had travelled to Ireland to visit her grandson Charlie. Discussing her departure, June disclosed her dissatisfaction with some of the more recent storylines and her decision to decline a retainer contract, though she confessed the experience felt akin to “bereavement”.
During an appearance on the Distinct Nostalgia podcast with former colleague Rani Singh, who portrayed shop owner Sufia Karim, June stated: “I don’t want a retainer for EastEnders, I’ve left. I’ve left for good.
“I’ve sent her off to Ireland and that’s where she’ll stay. I’ve left EastEnders. I did makeup a limerick. It’s a bit dirty. 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.”
