Wendy Richard Biography

Wendy Richard, MBE (born Wendy Emerton on 20 July 1943) is an English actress best known for playing Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and Pauline Fowler in EastEnders from 1985 to 2006.

Richard was educated at the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth before attending the Italia Conti Academy stage school. She first became familiar to TV audiences playing Joyce Harker, a regular in the BBC's 1960s soap opera, The Newcomers. She has also appeared in Dad's Army (as Private Walker's girl-friend Shirley), Up Pompeii, The Likely Lads and several of the Carry On films. In 1962, her distinct cockney vocals also helped get her to #1 on the UK singles chart — uncredited, on the single, Come Outside, by Mike Sarne.

Richard is best known for two roles:

Her role in the 1970s sitcom Are You Being Served? as Miss Shirley Brahms, a sales representative with a heavy Cockney accent, catapulted her to fame. (Richard also appeared in the Are You Being Served? sequel Grace & Favour in 1992 and 1993.)

Richard found continued success as heroine and matriarch Pauline Fowler on the BBC soap opera EastEnders, a role she played from the first episode in 1985 until the character's death on Christmas of 2006. On July 10, 2006, the BBC announced that Richard had decided to leave EastEnders, after nearly 22 years in the show. An interview with The Sun revealed that problems with the EastEnders storyline (Primarily her marriage to Joe Macer) was the main cause for her departure.

Richard endured a long battle with breast cancer in the early 1990s; her cancer went into remission after years of treatment, but has since returned [2]. Articles about her departure from EastEnders suggest her health challenges may have had a role in her decision to leave the series.

Richard is from Middlesbrough, and was awarded an MBE in 1999.