2 Jul 2009

British actress Mollie Sugden dies

3:53 pm on 2 July 2009

British actress Mollie Sugden has died at the age of 86.

Best known for playing Mrs Slocombe in the long-running BBC television comedy Are You Being Served?, she died in hospital after a long illness.

Sugden found early TV success with comedy programmes and Coronation Street.

She made her an impact in the late 1960s in The Liver Birds, then in 1972 came Are You Being Served?, which was set in a department store.

One of the programme's writers says Sugden was a "marvellous character" who would never turn down a chance to make people laugh, no matter how undignified it was.