Roberta Taylor, who had roles in The Bill and EastEnders, has died aged 76.
Taylor had emphysema, and a fall two months ago worsened her underlying ill health with pneumonia.
She played Irene Raymond in EastEnders from 1997-2000 before moving to ITV soap The Bill and taking on the character of Inspector Gina Gold.
Shakespeare & Hathaway in 2022 was her last major TV series.
Taylor, whose death was reported by the Guardian, was born in Plaistow, East London. It is in the Isle of Dogs that she was raised by her mother Winifred Roberts, grandma and aunties.
She stated that the women who surrounded her made her the woman she was, and they could have influenced the strong women she chose to portray on-screen.
Taylor began her career as a dental nurse but continued to take drama classes in her spare time.
She married ropemaker Victor Taylor in 1966, and the couple had a son, Elliott, in the same year.
In 1973, a friend advised her to try out for drama school, and she was successful. She auditioned on the same day as Peter Guinness, who would eventually become her second husband. They married in 1997 after twenty years together, and Guinness even popped up in a few episodes of The Bill playing a romantic interest for her.
She arrived in Albert Square five years later, playing the matriarch of the Hills family. Her storylines included a romance with Terry Raymond (Gavin Richards) and an affair with her toyboy lodger Troy Harvey (Jamie Jarvis) which was discovered in a dramatic Christmas day episode. The grocery store owner was also involved in comical scenes, often based around her love for trying new trends such as feng shui, aromatherapy, and meditation.
Explaining her decision to leave, she told The Mirror: ‘I gave over much of my life to the show and if I was to carry on at such a pace I’d have to continue to put my life on hold.
‘I didn’t want to do things at half-cock.
‘I had a lot of fun playing Irene, and Gavin, who plays my screen husband Terry, and I got on brilliantly.’
Her other notable credits include The Witches, Casualty, Doctors, Sharman, Holby City, Silent Witness, and Inspector Morse.
On top of acting, Taylor was an author – she published a memoir about her childhood called Too Many Mothers, and a novel The Reinvention of Ivy Brown.
Taylor is survived by Guinness, Elliott, granddaughter, Ellis, and two stepbrothers, Brian and Lionel.
