Josephine Tewson death: Last of the Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances actor dies aged 91

Josephine Tewson, star of Keeping Up Appearances and Last of the Summer Wine, has died at the age of 91.

She died on Thursday night (18 August) at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in Northwood, northeast London, her agent said.

The Hampstead-born star trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1952.

She went on to play small parts in the Sixties TV series Z-Cars and The Charlie Drake Show, and appeared in sketches with comedians Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker in Hark at Barker and Frost on Sunday.

She also played Edna Hawkins in the first six series of the Eighties and Nineties ITV sitcom Shelley.

Tewson was best known for playing Elizabeth Warden, anxious neighbour and reluctant best friend of the stuck-up social climber Hyacinth Bucket in the adored Nineties BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.

She collaborated with that show’s writer Roy Clarke again for her famous role as Miss Davenport in Last of the Summer Wine between 2003 and 2010.

In an interview with The Independent in 2008, discussing her role in Ronnie Barker’s sitcom Clarence, she said the part was one of the biggest surprises of her career.

“If you’re Julia Roberts or Judi Dench you expect people to write parts for you, but not little old me,” she joked.

In 2012, she toured her one-woman show Still Keeping Up Appearances? across the UK.

Paying tribute to the star, Carol Challis, who was married to Tewson’s late co-star John Challis, said: “Farewell to Josephine Tewson. John loved working with her on Last of the Summer Wine. Another one gone.”