Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Actress best known for playing Dot Cotton in EastEnders, now in her 90s and still working.
On the island
Eight records
Because he doesn't really let people sing his songs, I've heard, and he allowed it to be played for me in their kitchen as Dot, and I did sing along with him in the sense of occasionally singing Living Doll.
The Kashmiri SongFavourite
My mother used to play very well. She was a very good pianist and she had a lovely voice. And when we were there, it's the first thing I remember. She would play in the drawing-room, play the piano, and we as small children would stand there and sing with her.
We sang it at school, and for some reason, it always stayed in my memory, and I even used to use it as a lullaby when I sang lullabies to my children. We couldn't find it anywhere, and so I asked the Ipswich High School, the music mistress, Mrs. Chillingworth, if she would get her choir to learn it and sing it, the school choir, and to record it for me.
Bing Crosby with The Andrews Sisters
And this is something we used to dance to. It's to do with the war. There are loads of lovely songs. And this one, I had a rather nice boyfriend at the time, Manpen, I don't like the word boyfriend, and he was a submariner. I used to go down the submarine and we'd have pink gin and things like that. And then we'd dance, and he'd throw me around the floor,'cause it was a bit sort of violent.
This is one of the songs that Johnny I'd say sing like George Guitari when we were in the Carney Wood. And then when I was in Lace in Chamonix, in the south of France, I was talking to a young man, and I discovered his name was Francois Guitari, and I said, Are you any relative to George? and he said, He's my father. And I told him this story, and he was quite surprised, because it is a long time afterwards that there were still people who remembered his father.
Actually I used to sing a lot of songs, you know. As each child came along that would be the baby would be on my lap and the children would be in bed and they had a large room that was a kind of nursery when they were small. And then I would sing. It would be Over the Sea to Sky because Carrie the Lad who's born to be king that was my son William and then I did for the others I just did, you know, Jesus Bids Us Shine and Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and Oh Summertime. I used to ring. I had a good voice and I could actually go at the top of summertime down to the bottom, but I can't any more. I wish I could. And so I used to sing every night to them quite a long time.
We're back to the unrequited love, but it isn't actually it's a theme from it's one of those when they take a theme from the classical music and use it, so it's not really I'm not being very clever and having lots of classical music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:42Do you still enjoy playing the character [Dot]?
I'm making faces now'cause I can't be I'm just an actress, you know, and I've been very fortunate and I'm well known. I don't talk about myself as anything more than well known, and I'm lucky.
Presenter asks
2:12How do you keep the energy levels up? Where do you get your energy from to still be working hard?
Well, I haven't really got very much now, but I find when I get on set that my energy comes. It's a bit like Dame Edith Evans used to call it Doctor Grease paint. It's like people can go on the stage and break an ankle they don't notice till they come off. But as soon as I get on the stage, it's as if I have energy. I can be feeling like death warmed up when I sort of come in, the shoulders drooping down, and then then I'm I'm alive. So it it keeps me alive.
Presenter asks
5:55Your own independence, not in the soap, but in real life, seems very important to you. Is that fair?
It is extremely important to me and I hate to feel I'm losing it, you know, and if people put out hands to help me out of a car, I say, No, thank you, I won't accept it. And I get up and I don't push myself up from the arm of a chair. I use my thighs because you have to do that. You can act yourself into age. You can act yourself into anything you want.
The keepsakes
The book
Axel Munthe
Um and the story of Sam Michaelie. I've got about three copies now and I'm trying desperately to remember who wrote it. Axel Munter, who was Swedish and a doctor, and it is very interesting because he did all sorts of exciting things.
The luxury
Well, I'm going to take a packet of tobacco seeds, I think, and grow my own. I'm not sure about the paper. I think I could probably make it out of very thin leaves, like you do a cigar. Or maybe even some of the tobacco leaves. Yes, that would be a good idea.
Presenter asks
23:56How did you, as a young woman, recover from your husband's suicide?
Through my friends, and I was very tearful about it all. I used to cry in the car all the time on my own, but I never showed it. And I think people used to say, Oh, isn't she marvellous, June? And a very wise old lady, Den Jilks, used to teach music and at Stratford she was lovely and she said, Well, I wish she would break down, because it will help me sometime. But it didn't seem to.
Presenter asks
29:57Aged eighty-two, you were back on stage stripping off for Calendar Girls. Are you by nature an exhibitionist?
Well, no, but if you were on the stage it didn't matter. It wasn't like being in a room or a anything. You see, when I was in the Bic I played the vision at whoever's court it was in Faustus and I'd got this costume which was cut under the bust and there was a little bit of coffee coloured knit over your bosom and then I used to use coffee coloured make up anyway so it looked as if there was nothing on. It didn't worry me at all because I wasn't myself. So it's the same with calendar girls. We were supposed to be naked so I was the only one who had nothing on. But I had this big knitting bag over my er private parts and top of my legs, you know, my legs and my legs up and I had shoes on, that's all.
Presenter asks
31:54How do you think you would cope alone on a desert island?
I don't really know you think a party thing would be ... Quite a believe it or not, a solitary person now. I'm a lot on my own, and I like silence. I don't put the television on, I don't put the radio on. I do read an awful lot.
“I'm just an actress, you know, and I've been very fortunate and I'm well known. I don't talk about myself as anything more than well known, and I'm lucky.”
“As soon as I get on the stage, it's as if I have energy. I can be feeling like death warmed up when I sort of come in, the shoulders drooping down, and then then I'm I'm alive. So it it keeps me alive.”
“It is extremely important to me and I hate to feel I'm losing it, you know, and if people put out hands to help me out of a car, I say, No, thank you, I won't accept it. And I get up and I don't push myself up from the arm of a chair. I use my thighs because you have to do that. You can act yourself into age. You can act yourself into anything you want.”
“Through my friends, and I was very tearful about it all. I used to cry in the car all the time on my own, but I never showed it.”
“It didn't worry me at all because I wasn't myself.”
“No, not at all, no, no. No, I couldn't possibly. What would I do?”