The BBC has announced that June Brown, best known for her role as chain-smoking Dot Cotton, died at the age of 95.

On Sunday, the actress died at her home in Surrey with her family by her side.

Brown was born in Needham Market, Suffolk, on February 16, 1927, to Louisa Ann and Henry William Melton Brown. Her younger brother John Peter died at the age of 15 days from pneumonia in 1932, and her elder sister Marise died at the age of eight from a meningitis-like illness in 1934.

Rest In Peace June Brown who played the iconic Dot Cotton in Eastenders ? You will truly be missed and we’re sending so much love to her friends and family at this time? pic.twitter.com/y2kwQ6RvGv

— PrettyLittleThing (@OfficialPLT) April 4, 2022

Aside from English, she had Irish, Scottish, and Sephardic Jewish heritage from her maternal grandmother. Through her grandmother, she was descended from Isaac Bitton, a famous Jewish bare-knuckle boxer.

Brown attended St John’s Church of England School in Ipswich before obtaining a scholarship to Ipswich High School, where she obtained her high school diploma.

She was evacuated to the Welsh town of Pontyates in Carmarthenshire during World War II. During the war, she was a member of the Wrens and had classical training at the Old Vic Theatre School in Lambeth, London.