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Returning to June Brown as Dot, Dot, Dot and more…
I was sad to learn of the passing of the award winning actress from EastEnders, with this TV role and a wee flashback to her films with some Hollywood casts.
EastEnders – Jim and Dot announce their engagement (25th December 2001), Eastenders Storylines
When it comes to stars’ autobiographies and their titles, you will know that I love it when a pun and a film or TV star’s career collide in a serendipitous way. So once again I found this happening – and at its best so far – after reading that character actress June Brown’s autobiography was titled Before the Year Dot. This book has her shedding light on her career before her (probably) most famous role in EastEnders (1985-) as Dot Cotton.
This book title was just one of a few facts, that I sadly learned about June after her passing recently. This actress was the second on the list of the British long-running soap, Eastenders’ longest-serving cast members but was the longest-serving actress with 31 years on the show. She starred in this British soap opera from 1985 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2020.
Her longevity on the show was only surpassed on the show by the actor, Adam Woodyatt, who plays Ian Beale. Wikipedia stated she first left the show in 1993 when she believed that the actor who played Ian Beale’s father, Pete Beale was unfairly axed.
However, in her many roles before Eastenders, I remember seeing this actress of stage and screen in two very different roles in those pre-Eastenders roles. So then only knowing her as Dot Cotton, it was a shockingly nice surprise as a blogger as she made an appearance in these films, I’d seen as a kid and then not made that connection.
This was as up until then I’d only recognised EastEnders actors and actresses in Play Away (1971-84) – such as Anita Dobson – and Grange Hill (1978-2008) – such as Todd Carty and Susan Tully. And much, much later Darlin Husband had spotted John Altman in An American Werewolf in London (1981), and this actor had played Brown’s on-screen son, Nasty Nick.
The first role I spotted her in was as the nanny of the recently widowed, Ned (Gene Hackman)’s kids in the tearjerker Misunderstood (1984) as Mrs Paley. Here this religious woman helps this widower look after his kids after the sudden death of his wife. Brown’s religious spouting governess isn’t loved that much by the kids, Andrew (Henry Thomas) and Miles (Huckleberry Fox). An example of this is best seen in this script in this scene as quoted by IMDB HERE,
Mrs. Paley : [spoon-feeding soup to the small boy] Now just a little bit more. Do it for baby Jesus. Miles : Baby Jesus wouldn’t eat this rotten junk.
But then nobody really likes an on-screen nanny with acceptions to the rules usually played by Julie Andrews, who is an act hard to follow as Mary Poppins (1964) and Maria in The Sound of Music (1965).
I also noticed June Brown in a wee role in Murder by Decree (1979), one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes film adaptations. In this film version, she starred with Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes and James Mason as Doctor Watson. In this film, fiction blends with fact, as the fictional pair of sleuths investigate those true life murders by Jack the Ripper. June starred as Annie Chapman, one of the Ripper’s five prostitute victims and this film gives its own solution to these unsolved murders. (And I still won’t tell you they think dunnit). This film also starred Donald Sutherland and Anthony Quayle.
It seems this actress also had roles in Minder (1984), The Sweeney (1975) and even four episodes of Doctor Who (1973-74) with Jon Pertwee. She even appeared in a few films and TV on my watch list – and keep your eyes peeled for possible reviews – in Sitting Target (1972) – with Oliver Reed, Jill St John and Ian McShane -, Psychomania (1973) – with Beryl Reid and George Sanders – and the Lace (1984) mini-series with Phoebe Cates, Brooke Adams and Bess Armstrong.
Yet her stand out role as a mother, wife, best friend and more was encapsulated in one of her longest playing roles as Dot Cotton. I always remembered Dot Cotton for her Eastend accented drawl, a cigarette precariously hanging from her mouth, constant spouting of her passionate hypochondriac and religious beliefs and having hair rollers in her hair.
Also, as Dot, her character was remembered for her gossiping and supportive nature and that ner do well son, Nasty Nick Cotton (John Altman). She had also great friendships with fellow pensioners, Ethel Skinner and Lou Beale. Nick Cotton was nicknamed Nasty Nick years before the British reality show, Big Brother (2000-18) aired for the first time. This was the year when the Press adopted this name for the contestant who cheated on the nominations. And it seems I missed one helluva storyline about this mother and son after I stopped watching this show in 2008.
My favourite storyline however was Dot’s on-screen romance with John Bardon’s Jim Branning both before and after this actor’s real-life stroke, and the trooper that he was he kept on working. It was humbling stuff watch their on-screen teamwork with Brown and this actor in their scenes together. A quote from June Brown about this marriage made in soap is found on Wikipedia, HERE saying,
“when it happened there was nobody [but] with marrying Jim she gets a family – that’s what persuaded me. That house will become a house again – it will have a central point, they will be able to use the house as a central point, as Dot will be there.”
Both Brown and Bardon won awards for their roles. This on-screen couple, Dot and Jim got engaged, then married in 2002 and it was a happy marriage. However, this was the second marriage for Dot who was married to Nick’s father, a con man, Charlie Cotton (Christopher Hancock) when she joined the series who was like his son, a bit of a git.
Dot’s character was the first character to get a one-person spin-off show from this soap named Pretty Baby. Brown also starred with Gretchen Franklin, as Dot’s best friend Ethel in a two-hander episode. This was in a controversial episode with Dot helping the then cancer-ridden, Ethel (Franklin) pass away peacefully in a story focusing on euthanasia. I remember this episode being shown, a kinda groaning about this episode being just these two characters. As you do when the previous episode ends on a cliffhanger. But remembering it now both actresses gave compelling and credible performances.
Other storylines included Dot’s back story, as she was immortalised again in a spin-off show and this told of her life bringing up Nick on her own after Charlie had a fling with her sister, her sister Rose. And her dramatic storylines with that dastardly son and his son / her grandson Ashley and these men’s on screen antics, and those more comic plots such as her mistaking a drug for a herbal tea.
But June Brown will be missed if I see this show on my return to the UK. This is if I decide to watch those current Albert Square happenings in this soap. For a while just dipping into the show, I only recognised Phil Mitchell. It really won’t be the same without her. June Brown’s always credible performance as Dot, made a deep and lasting impression in this soap, pop culture, by impersonators, and in many directions in the lives of many of North, South, West and EastEnders.
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