Lady Pat Routledge: The Life of TV's Magnificently Snobby 'Hyacinth Bouquet'

Lady Pat Routledge, who has died at the age of 96, etched her presence on the British psyche as the pretentious Mrs. Bucket.

Declaring it was "said Bouquet," Hyacinth ran roughshod over her patient husband and bewildered neighbours in Keeping Up Appearances, one of Britain's best-loved comedies in the 1990s.

Behaving like a aristocrat while living in a suburb, Hyacinth's monstrous status-seeking plans were ultimately destined to failure—while she battled to maintain her dignity.

It was Dame Routledge's best-known role in a career that saw her earn stage awards on both sides of the ocean, become the lead of the playwright's celebrated TV monologues, and star as BBC1's crime-busting Mrs. Wainthropp.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

Katherine Pat Routledge was born in Birkenhead on 17 February 1929.

Her dad was a haberdasher and she remembered taking cover from enemy air raids in the basement of his store throughout the war.

She majored in English at nearby the University of Liverpool and intended to teach. Instead, she entered the Liverpool Playhouse prior to training at the Bristol drama school.

Her successful acting journey took her from the regions to the West End, and eventually to New York, where Leonard Bernstein chose her to appear in his stage production 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1976.

She had previously received a Tony award for her acting in Darling of the Day.

She could transition effortlessly from comedies to serious drama.

She progressed from Stratford-upon-Avon, appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and then to the National Theatre in the capital.

At the National, her lead role in the stage musical Carousel involved her singing the rousing You'll Never Walk Alone.

There were also several supporting film roles, notably in the 1967 film To Sir, With Love, and the Jerry Lewis funny film Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.

Her theatre and broadcast work proved her versatility and won her awards, but it was television that provided Routledge with her most high profile roles.

Television Breakthrough and Iconic Characters

Early small-screen appearances included well-liked programmes like Z Cars and Steptoe and Son.

Subsequently, among Britain's esteemed writers, the dramatist, penned a series of remarkable Talking Heads TV solos for her.

Routledge conquered her initial reluctance to act his scripts and shone as A Woman of No Importance and A Lady of Letters.

She later portray a lonely, middle-aged department store assistant tipped into a affair with a kinky foot doctor in Bennett's Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet.

A comic turn as the exaggerated character on The Victoria Wood Show resulted in the creation of Hyacinth Bucket.

Routledge remembered being sent the episodes by the writer, the screenwriter—who had also done Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours.

"I opened the script for a moment at one o'clock in the morning," she recalled, "I read straight through and the character jumped off the script. I recognized that lady, I'd met several of that woman."

Keeping Up Appearances ran for five series and included several Christmas specials.

In a documentary, she stated that fans had numbered the royal family and Pope Benedict XVI.

It became the broadcaster's most exported show ever and ensured Routledge was known as distant as Botswana.

For her work on the sitcom, she was voted Britain's all-time favourite actress in 1996, but after half a decade in the part, she felt it was time for a new direction.

"I decided to end it to an close," she said, "and, naturally, the broadcaster didn’t care for very much."

She thought that Roy Clarke was beginning to recycle ideas and mentioned a piece of guidance from the comedian, Ronnie Barker.

"He always left with audiences saying, ‘Oh, won't you do any more?’ she recalled, rather than people saying, ‘Is that still on?’"

Later Work and Private Life

Playing the homely but astute sleuth in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates brought her continued popularity on television, but she always referred to the theatre as "the test."

Long after she stopped appearing frequently on screen, Routledge undertook theatre tours equally in the United Kingdom and overseas.

Whenever journalists posed the inevitable inquiry, she asked them to spell out the word retirement because, she explained: "It isn't in my lexicon."

She did not married or had children, but told interviewers of two significant romances in her youth, one with a wedded man.

"I experienced guilt and an acute sense that there had to be loss," she admitted. "I guess I convinced myself that it was acceptable for the time being because his marriage was no a living thing."

Instead, she devoted herself to her craft, honoring it with the talent, discipline and devotion that were consistently respected by her colleagues.

She was critical about the BBC's choice in 2016 to revive Keeping Up Appearances, but on this occasion placed in the 1950s and featuring a younger version of her role.

Questioning the network's approach of rebooting classic comedies she said, "For what reason are they doing this kind of project, they have to be desperate."

She had already disagreed with the broadcaster over their move to not order a film she had authored about the author the children's author (Routledge was a Patron of the Beatrix Potter Society), which finally aired on another network.

On turning 90, she continued to live quietly in the city, where she busied herself raising funds for the church roof.

In 2017, she became a Dame Commander of the British honors system but—in contrast to her character—honors did not affect her mind.

Dame Routledge always said she thanked her Northern upbringing and stable background for giving her practicality with her life and her money.

Nonetheless, she confessed that, if any extra money come her way, she'd certainly use it on "several bottles of champagne"—an love of the finer things in life that she had in common with her most famous creation.

"I never was stage-struck," she declared. "I'm not stage-struck now. No one is more surprised than myself that I have, in fact, spent my career doing acting."