(Photo: Getty Images)
The utterly unique June Brown celebrates her 95th birthday Wednesday (February 16), so we're celebrating by making her our British Icon of the Week. Here are 10 things we appreciate about this enduringly popular and very charismatic actress.
1. She's a veritable legend of British soap opera.
Brown played chain-smoking, shamelessly gossipy, and staunchly Christian launderette worker Dot Cotton on the BBC's flagship soap, EastEnders, for 2,371 episodes between 1985 and 2020. Although Brown left the show in 2020, Dot remains synonymous with EastEnders and an icon of British pop culture generally. If you ever want a Dot Cotton T-shirt, there are lots to choose from.

2. She's a BAFTA-nominated actress.
Brown made British TV history in 2008 when she became the first actor to carry a soap opera episode single-handed. For her deeply poignant performance in the monologue episode, "Pretty Baby...," during which Dot makes a lengthy tape recorder message for her ailing husband Jim (John Bardon), Brown was nominated for Best Actress at the following year's BAFTA TV Awards.

3. She's a former Doctor Who guest star.
More than a decade before EastEnders made her a U.K. household name, Brown portrayed Lady Eleanor of Wessex in the 1973-1974 Doctor Who series "The Time Warrior." In her episodes, she starred opposite Third Doctor Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen's popular companion Sarah Jane Smith.
4. She also appeared in 1997's Bean: The Movie.
Brown gets to deliver a classic disapproving facial expression when Rowan Atkinson's title character blows his nose rather ostentatiously in her otherwise classy reception area.

5. She knows her worth as an actress.
"You don't get an award by asking for a tomato juice. As an actress, I need a proper function," Brown told The Guardian in 2013. "Never mind all these scenes where I am brought in for one line about something trivial. I've been acting in the theater since the late-60s and I'm not a walk-on. I do get cross about it."
6. She bonded with Lady Gaga on The Graham Norton Show.
This has got to be one of the funniest and most unexpected moments in the show's history. Lady Gaga clearly appreciates Brown's slightly eccentric, irony-drenched, and very camp personality, which essentially allows Brown to take over the show. Graham Norton even has to remind Brown that she's there to promote her memoir!

7. She has received two prestigious honors from Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2008, Brown received an MBE award for services to drama and charity; then at the end of last year, she was made an OBE, which is a slightly higher accolade. She told the BBC at the time: "It is a great honor and I would like to thank Her Majesty, and all those involved in my recommendation."
8. She's a great raconteur.
During an appearance on U.K. daytime show Loose Women, Brown recalled the time she nearly exposed her co-star Anita Dobson when they starred together in a stage production of Calendar Girls, a play which includes a tasteful nude scene.

9. She bowed out of EastEnders on her own terms.
As the BBC reported at the time, Brown confirmed in a 2020 podcast interview that she had left the show "for good." During the interview, Brown admitted that putting Dot behind her was a "very strange feeling," adding, "It's almost as if I've been bereaved. I've played two people simultaneously for 35 years. Really Dot wasn't me, but spiritually she probably was."
10. But she's still working.
In Christmas 2020, she starred in the podcast drama Missing You, which you can find out more about here. Have a fantastic birthday, June Brown!
Do you have a June Brown memory to add to the list?