Throughout her long career June Whitfield has kept scrapbooks and in this autobiography she pulls on them to recall and illustrate her long and varied career. From Carry On to Terry and June to Absolutely Fabulous and much much, more June has entertained us for 60 years and this book illustrates just why she is a British institution.
A British Comedy Award for Lifetime Achievement, A 'South Bank Show' retrospective, a C.B.E. (she insists it means 'Caught Before Expiry'), twice the recipient of a red book on 'This Is Your Life' and with every major comedy star of the last half-century amongst her most ardent admirers, June Whitfield is a legend, a legend who in her 80's still gets up at dawn to prepare for yet another day in front of the cameras. In her long and rich career she has kept meticulous scrapbooks and these form the backbone to this highly illustrated account of her life and times. It is peppered with hilarious anecdotes and sage reflections on the cast of stars she has worked with as well as recounting some of the most iconic moments in comedy history. To no one else has the description 'National Treasure' been more appropriate.
After from graduating from RADA, June Whitfield has been a 'with', and then most decidedly an 'and' to all the comic greats since the late 1940's: Arthur Askey, Tony Hancock, Wilfrid Pickles, Jimmy Edwards, Bob Monkhouse, Ronnie Barker, Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Terry Scott, Frankie Howerd, Roy Hudd, Kenneth Williams, Julian Clary, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders. Her range has encompassed Shakespeare and the 'Carry OnÂ…' films, Oscar Wilde and 'Absolutely Fabulous', Noel Coward and 'Friends' but she is best known for an iconic run of television comedies starring alongside a galaxy of leading men and for the many parts on radio and television she has made her own: as Eth Glum, wife to Ron, in Take it from Here in the 1950's to Jennifer Saunders' Mother' in Absolutely Fabulous in the 1990's.
