Penelope Keith, the British sitcom star best known for The Good Life, has died. She was 86.
A statement released to the BBC on Monday, on behalf of her family, read: “We are deeply saddened to announce that Dame Penelope Keith died peacefully whilst living with cancer at her home in Surrey where she had lived for more than 50 years… The family is grateful for the care and support she received throughout her treatments, and ask that their privacy be respected at this time.”
The actress is famed for playing the snobbish social climber Margaret “Margo” Leadbetter in The Good Life, a show that went by the title Good Neighbors in the U.S. and ran from 1975 to 1978.
The series was immensely popular in Keith’s native U.K., following the midlife crisis of 40-year-old plastics designer Tom Good (Richard Briers), who attempts to escape the rat race lifestyle by becoming entirely self-sufficient in the London suburbs with his wife, Barbara (Felicity Kendal). Margo, a staunch Conservative neighbor of the couple, was disapproving of the pair’s decisions, and Keith’s performance would win her the 1977 BAFTA TV Award for best light entertainment. In 1978, she won another BAFTA TV Award — this time for best actress — for The Norman Conquests.
