Barbara Windsor

Barbara Ann Windsor, MBE (born Barbara Ann Deeks on 6 August 1937) is an English actress. Her best known roles are in the Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders; she is now considered by many to be something of a British national institution.

A comedy actress with a cheeky smile and blonde beehive hairdo, in the Diana Dors tradition, but more comic caricature than sex symbol, whose film roles had names like Goldie Locks, and Miss Hope Springs.

Whilst at the Aida Foster Stage School, Barbara Windsor (real name Deeks) appeared on stage in the West End chorus of Love From Judy, and later worked as film extra, singer in West End nightclubs, and scantily-clad film magazine pin-up of the late 1950s.

Her break came in the East End musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (1959) and Joan Littlewood's play and 1963 film Sparrows Can't Sing (British Academy Award nomination as Best British Actress).

She appeared in nine Carry On films, mainly as the comic foil for Sid James, famously managing to lose her bikini top in Carry on Camping (d. Gerald Thomas, 1969).

With a history of colourful relationships, she latterly brought credibility to the role of pub landlady in the soap EastEnders (1994-), a role which extended her career.