Actress June Brown is best-known as EastEnders laundrette Dot Cotton. But in a candid interview June revealed she has faced her own personal dramas off the square.
EastEnders star June Brown has been a TV favourite for more than three decades thanks to her role as laundrette assistant Dot Cotton.
June's character has taken on some of the soap's most memorable storylines, but the actress recently opened up about her personal life, in which she has had more than her fair share of heartache.
The 89 year old revealed her first husband, John Garley, committed suicide in 1957, seven years after they got married.
And June admitted she blames herself for the depressed actor's death after he gassed himself.
"I walked into the bedroom and there was Johnny, lying on the bed, the gas fire propped up next to him," she told The Sun.
"I’d got him breathing again but it was obvious he’d suffered severe brain damage."
John died in hospital three days later, but June confessed she felt guilty over the tragedy, as she had left him money in case their gas meter ran out.
"I didn’t want to think that if I hadn’t left him the one and eight pence he wouldn’t have been able to do it," she said.
June married Robert Arnold a year later, and they had six children together, but one child, Chloe, sadly passed away after she was born at 28 weeks.
June is set to celebrate her 90th birthday soon, and the BBC have paid tribute to the actress with a special documentary.
Co-stars including Danny Dyer, Adam Woodyatt and Lacey Turner have opened up about working with the soap star, who was 58 when she made her first appearance on the show in 1985.
"It’s only right that June should be honoured," Patrick Trueman actor Rudolph Walker explained.
"Her character isn’t just loved, June herself is so respected in the industry and by the public."
But while she is set to enjoy a huge milestone, she is adamant she won't be giving up her job any time soon.
"As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on," she said.
"I’d be utterly bored if I stopped."
June Brown At 90: A Walford Legend airs on Thursday, at 8:30pm, on BBC1.
