🌟 Wendy Richard MBE Biography

👩‍🎭 At a glance

⭐Details👩 Full name Wendy Emerton

🎭 Known professionally as Wendy Richard

🎂 Born20 July 1943

📍 Birthplace Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, England Nationality British

🎬 Profession Actress and singer

🏆 Honour MBE, 2000

🕊️ Died26 February 2009🎂 Age65

⭐ Best known forS hirley Brahms and Pauline Fowler

👶 Early life

Wendy Richard was born Wendy Emerton on 20 July 1943 in Middlesbrough.

Her family subsequently moved to London, and it was in London that she developed her interest in performing.

🎭 As a young woman, Wendy trained at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, one of Britain's most famous performing-arts schools.

She worked in department stores while establishing herself as an actress and performer.

🎤 Early career and singing

Wendy began working professionally while still young.

📺 Her early television appearances included programmes such as:

• Dixon of Dock Green
• Harpers West One
• The Newcomers
• The Likely Lads
• Dad's Army
• Up Pompeii!

🎵 She also briefly pursued a career as a singer.

In 1962 she was involved with Mike Sarne's "Come Outside", which became a major British hit and reached No. 1 in the UK charts.

This makes Wendy's early career particularly interesting: she was an actress before becoming a television star, but she also had genuine pop success.

🚌 Wendy Richard and On the Buses

This is an important part of Wendy Richard's career, especially for fans of classic British sitcoms.

📺 On the Buses television series

The original On the Buses ran on ITV from 1969 to 1973, comprising 74 episodes across seven series.

Wendy Richard was not one of the regular stars such as:

🚌 Reg Varney — Stan Butler

🎫 Bob Grant — Jack Harper

👮 Stephen Lewis — Inspector Blakey

👩 Anna Karen — Olive Rudge

👵 Doris Hare — Mum

👨 Michael Robbins — Arthur Rudge

Instead, Wendy appeared as a guest performer.

she appeared in the Series 5 episode “Busman's Ball,” broadcast on 24 October 1971.

🎬 On the Buses — 1971 film

Wendy also appeared in the hugely successful 1971 cinema film On the Buses.

🎭 Role: Housewife

The film starred:

• 🚌 Reg Varney — Stan Butler
• 🎫 Bob Grant — Jack Harper
• 👮 Stephen Lewis — Blakey
• 👩 Anna Karen — Olive
• 👵 Doris Hare — Mum
• 👨 Michael Robbins — Arthur
• ⭐ Wendy Richard — Housewife

The surviving cast credits specifically list Wendy as “Housewife”, credited as Wendy Richards.

So although her part was relatively small, On the Buses is a genuine part of Wendy Richard's screen career.

🏬 ⭐ Are You Being Served?

Wendy's first truly iconic sitcom role came with Shirley Brahms in Are You Being Served?

👗 Shirley Brahms was a sales assistant in the ladies' department of Grace Brothers.

Wendy played Shirley from 1972 until 1985, becoming one of the programme's most recognisable performers.

😂 Shirley Brahms

Shirley was:

💬 Quick-witted

🇬🇧 Strongly Cockney

👗 Fashion-conscious

❤️ Attractive and popular

😏 Frequently flirtatious

😤 Often exasperated by her colleagues

Her scenes with Mollie Sugden's Mrs Slocombe became particularly memorable.

The show made Wendy Richard a household name and firmly established her as one of Britain's leading sitcom actresses.

🎥 Film career

Wendy also appeared in numerous British films.

🎬 Her film credits included:

• Doctor in Clover
• No Blade of Grass
• Gumshoe
• 🚌 On the Buses
• Bless This House
• Carry On Matron
• Carry On Girls
• Are You Being Served?

She therefore became part of the great tradition of British cinema comedy of the 1960s and 1970s.

🏨 Grace & Favour

When Are You Being Served? ended, Wendy returned to the role of Shirley Brahms for the spin-off series Grace & Favour.

🏨 The series brought several of the Grace Brothers characters together in a completely different setting.

Wendy therefore played Shirley for many years across both the original sitcom and its successor.

🏠 ⭐ EastEnders — Pauline Fowler

In 1985, Wendy Richard took the role that would become perhaps her greatest achievement:

🧺 Pauline Fowler

Pauline was one of the original characters in EastEnders.

Wendy appeared in the programme from its launch in 1985 until 2006.

This was an extraordinary transformation.

👗 Shirley Brahms was a cheeky, glamorous comedy character.

🧺 Pauline Fowler was a much more serious character — a working-class wife and mother whose family life was frequently filled with tragedy.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The Fowler family

Pauline's family became one of the foundations of early EastEnders.

❤️ Arthur Fowler

❤️ Mark Fowler

❤️ Michelle Fowler

❤️ Martin Fowler

Her husband Arthur, played by Bill Treacher, was particularly important to the early programme.

Pauline's relationships with her children and grandchildren gave Wendy some of her most dramatic material.

💥 Pauline's famous personality

Pauline was known for being:

🧺 Hardworking

❤️ Family-oriented

💪 Strong-willed

😠 Stubborn

🗣️ Opinionated

🏠 Traditional

😢 Frequently emotionally wounded

Wendy Richard gave Pauline an enormous amount of humanity.

She could play comedy brilliantly, but EastEnders demonstrated that she was also a highly accomplished dramatic actress.

🏆 Awards and honours

👑 MBE — 2000

Wendy Richard was appointed an MBE in 2000 for her contribution to British entertainment.

🏆 Lifetime Achievement Award — 2007

In 2007 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Soap Awards, recognising her long-running portrayal of Pauline Fowler.

📺 Later career

After leaving EastEnders in 2006, Wendy continued to make television appearances.

Her later work included appearances in programmes such as:

📺 Benidorm

📺 Marple

📺 Television documentaries and specials

She remained a familiar face to British television audiences right up until the final years of her life.

📖 Autobiography

Wendy published her autobiography:

📚 Wendy Richard... No "S": My Life Story

The book chronicled her extraordinary journey from a young London performer to one of Britain's most recognisable television actresses.

❤️ Personal life

Wendy Richard married several times during her life.

She was married to:

💍 Len Blakely

💍 Will Thorpe

💍 Paul Glorney

💍 John Burns

She married John Burns in 2008, shortly before her death.

🕊️ Death

Wendy Richard died on 26 February 2009, aged 65.

Her death brought to an end a career that had lasted almost five decades.

She had successfully conquered several different areas of British entertainment:

🎤 Pop music

📺 Television comedy

🎬 Cinema

🎭 Drama

🧺 Soap opera

🌟 Wendy Richard's greatest characters

🚌 Guest roles On the Buses Early 1970s sitcom connection

👗 Shirley Brahms Are You Being Served?⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

👗 Shirley Brahms Grace & Favour ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🧺 Pauline Fowler EastEnders⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🎬 HousewifeOn the Buses film⭐⭐⭐

🌟 Legacy

Wendy Richard's career is remarkable because she successfully created two completely different television icons.

👗 Shirley Brahms — the cheeky Cockney sales assistant who made audiences laugh.

🧺 Pauline Fowler — the strong, complicated matriarch who became one of the defining characters of EastEnders.

And for classic sitcom enthusiasts, there's also her earlier connection with:

🚌 On the Buses — a small but memorable part of her early-1970s comedy career.

Wendy Richard remains one of the most recognisable and enduring actresses in British television history.

Introduction:

Paul Burton, a writer, filmmaker and film & TV historian, was lucky enough to interview Wendy Richard during 2007. Paul paid the following tribute to Wendy in his blog on the Borehamwood & Elstree Times website on the day it was announced that she had sadly passed away:

Wendy Richard: A Tribute:

Wendy, who married her long-term partner John Burns last October, lived and worked through the golden age of British film & television.

In more recent years Richard had become more well-known for playing Pauline Fowler in the BBC soap, EastEnders, for 21 years. However her list of other acting credits is extensive.

Leaving school at the tender age of 15, Wendy Emerton, who was raised in London but born in Middlesbrough, changed her name whilst at drama school.

From early on in her acting career Richard displayed a talent for comedy roles. She appeared in the sitcom The Likely Lads; and even more memorably in Dad's Army, playing Private Walker's girlfriend.

In 1972 Wendy played Shirley Brahms in the long-running television sitcom Are You Being Served? for the first time. This is a role she would also go on to play in stage version in Blackpool and in a big screen version made at Elstree Studios. A sequel, Grace and Favour, was also made by the BBC in the Nineties.

During her time on Are You Being Served?, Richard struck up a close friendship with her co-star, John Inman. This was a friendship that lasted until Inman's untimely death in March 2007.

Wendy’s other comedy roles included appearing in the films: On the Buses, Bless this House and Carry On Girls.

I was lucky enough to interview Wendy, who was awarded the MBE in 2000, by phone for my Elstree Calling website and the Borehamwood & Elstree Times website in 2007. I found her charming and was delighted to have such a rapport with her as I had always been a huge fan of hers. From talking to her it was obvious that we shared the same thoughts and feelings on film & television. I will treasure the short note she sent afterwards with a photo saying how much she had enjoyed the interview.

I will miss Wendy popping up on television and thank goodness for the invention of DVD and video which will mean we will be able to enjoy her work for year's to come.

For those of you who may not have read my interview with Wendy about her time working at Elstree Studios, I have added it below:

Paul: What are your personal memories of filming at Elstree Studios?

Wendy: I remember that I had one days filming on the film On the Buses, which was the first of three On the Buses spin-off films. I played a woman doing her washing at a laundrette, and my scene was filmed on location at a real laundrette on Manor Way in Borehamwood, not far from Elstree Studios. I recall that the other actress in the scene who played my friend in the film was actually played by Reg Varney's real-life daughter.

Paul: What are your recollections of working on the film version of Are You Being Served? at Elstree in 1977?

Wendy: We had a great to work with and it was so nice to get together. I remember that Andrew Sachs (who played Manuel in the sitcom Fawlty Towers) appeared as a hotel manager in the film.

We filmed some scenes for the film version of Are You Being Served? on location at Luton Airport, and we used one of Dan Air's training planes for some of the filming.

During a break from filming, John Inman and I were sitting in the airport bar when a young man behind the bar asked John (who was dressed in this bright prink costume that he wore in the film) if he was going far? To which John replied (referring to his costume): "I think I've gone far enough!"

Paul: What are your feelings on the history of Elstree Studios?

Wendy: So many great movies have been made at Elstree over the years, and it has such a great history. But then England has always had the finest craftsmen and technicians. For instance, I remember in particular seeing a wonderful set that had been built on the back lot at Elstree which featured a large sweeping staircase that just led to no-where.

Although I am a fan of the supermarket chain Tesco’s, I felt really upset when part of the site at Elstree was demolished in the early 90s and one of their stores built in its place. And I felt exactly the same when the old MGM Studios in Borehamwood was demolished too.

I really enjoyed my time working at Elstree, they were great days.

My thoughts are with Wendy's partner, John Burns, and her family at this sad time.

RIP, Wendy.

Paul Burton

February 2009

Blog - Paul Burton's film & TV-related blog which he writes for the Borehamwood & Elstree Times: http://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/blog/paulburton