OLIVE IN THE PITS
British TV mainstay Anna Karen has died, terrifyingly in a house fire, aged 85. Her first sitcom role in Wild, Wild Women would be a launchpad to her defining role, frumpish and oft-harried wife Olive in ITV bus crew sitcom On the Buses. Filming episodes of WWW while suffering from flu, in addition to being an unenvisionable scenario nowadays, unwittingly made her a perfect fit for Olive in the eyes of Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, the scriptwriting team behind both shows. Karen, an occasional model, eschewed makeup and used padding when portraying the character she considered “the ugliest woman on television”. She was the programme’s last surviving principal cast member. Decades later, she assumed a recurring role in EastEnders as Aunt Sal, the sister of her IRL bestie Barbara Windsor’s Peggy Mitchell. Karen first met Windsor while filming a bit part in Carry On Camping in the late 60s, and her last public appearance was at Windsor’s funeral in early 2021. The first unnatural hit of the year, Anna Karen was picked by a smattering of comedy theme teams, including a joker for The Retched pong of Brit sit-com.
Anna Karen
19 September 1936 – 22 February 2022, aged 85
4 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 😲 = 9 POINTS, 🃏 (x1) 18 POINTS)