June Brown

June Muriel Brown, MBE (born 16 February 1927) is an English actress, known for her role as Dot Cotton in the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 1985 to 1993, and from 1997 onwards. In 2005, she won Best Actress at the British Soap Awards and also received the Lifetime Achievement award at the same ceremony. In 2009, she was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. She is only the second performer to receive a BAFTA nomination for their work in a soap opera (the first was Jean Alexander). She was made a MBE in the 2008 Queens Birthday Honours.

Early life and family

June Muriel Brown was born in Suffolk in 1927, the daughter of Louisa Ann (née Butler) and Henry William Melton Brown. She was one of five children, although her baby brother died of pneumonia in 1932, aged 15 days, and her elder sister, Marise, died in 1934, aged eight, from a meningitis-like illness. Other than English, she has Irish, Scottish, Italian and Sephardic Jewish descent from Oran, Algeria. On her maternal grandmother's side June is descended from the Jewish bare knuckle boxer Isaac Bitton. She was educated at St John's Church of England school in Ipswich and then won a scholarship to Ipswich High School where she passed the school certificate examinations. During the Second World War, she was evacuated to Pontyates, a village in Wales. During the later years of the war, she served in the Wrens (Royal Navy), and was classically trained at The Old Vic Theatre School.