Dame Penelope Keith, British sitcom star, dies at 86
LONDON — Penelope Keith, a comic performer who shone as flinty but lovable upper-crust characters in British sitcoms “The Good Life,” which aired on PBS in the U.S. as “Good Neighbors,” and “To the Manor Born,” has died aged 86. Keith’s family said Monday that she had been diagnosed with cancer and died at her home in Surrey, near London. Keith began her acting career onstage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963. But she found her greatest fame on television. She won a BAFTA Award in 1977 for “The Good Life,” playing Margo Leadbetter, a snobbish suburbanite appalled by her back-to-the-land neighbors Tom and Barbara Good, played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal. Kendal called Keith a “comic genius.” “She was a joy to know and work with, and she will be much missed,” Kendal said. Keith displayed a similar mix of imperiousness and deadpan wit in “To the Manor Born,” broadcast between 1979 and 1981 and brought back for a 2007 Christmas special. Keith played cash-strapped aristocratic widow Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, forced to sell her …
