Happy birthday June Brown! Her greatest, campest moments
Actress June Brown, known as TV’s Dot Cotton, is celebrating her 90th birthday.
She’s been playing Dot for some three decades now, after joining the soap at the spritely age of 58.
Devoutly Christian Dot had originally had some pretty regressive views on LGBT issues.
And actress June said it felt like a challenge playing her alter ego in Eastenders during the late 1980s, when Dot had difficulty in accepting homosexuality.
In 1986, Eastenders introduced its first ever gay character, Colin Russell, played by Michael Cashman.
Despite Colin and his boyfriend, Barry, being very pleasant, Dot felt unable to accept them for being gay and even spreads rumours around Albert Square that Colin had AIDS.
She previously told PinkNews it was difficult playing someone with anti-gay views, especially with her close friendship with Lord Cashman, but she said acting meant “putting your own views to one side.”
She also starred in a scene with Barbara Windsor’s character, Peggy Mitchell, who made a number of homophobic comments in the Queen Vic.
“I remember Barbara being very upset as she had to say some homophobic things and she really didn’t want to do it at all”, Brown said.
As if that wasn’t brilliant enough, she also became BFFs with Lady Gaga.
In an episode of Graham Norton’s Friday night chat show, June Brown and Lady Gaga became unlikely best friends, in what must be the dampest chat show scenes ever witnessed.
She told PinkNews: “I can’t retire, you won’t believe it but my pension is meagre, and because of the recession it has dropped in half, if I can run my bungalow on it, I will be lucky.”
