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Dame Pat Routledge, who has died at the years of 96, made her mark on the British consciousness as the pretentious Hyacinth Bucket.

Declaring it was "pronounced Bouquet," Hyacinth trampled over her patient husband and bewildered neighbours in the popular sitcom, one of Britain's best-loved sitcoms in the 1990s.

Acting like a aristocrat while living in a suburb, Hyacinth's over-the-top social-climbing schemes were in the end doomed to collapse—while she struggled to keep her dignity.

It was Dame Patricia's most famous part in a professional life that included her win theatrical awards on both sides of the Atlantic, become the star of Alan Bennett's famous TV monologues, and become BBC1's crime-busting Hetty Wainthropp.

Early Life and Career Beginnings

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

Her father was a clothier and she later recalled sheltering from enemy air raids in the basement of his shop throughout the war.

She majored in English at local the University of Liverpool and planned to teach. Rather, she entered the Liverpool Playhouse prior to training at the Bristol Old Vic.

Her prosperous acting journey brought her from the provinces to the London theatre district, and finally to New York, where Leonard Bernstein chose her to star in his musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1976.

She had already won a Tony award for her acting in Darling of the Day.

She could move effortlessly from comedies to classics.

She went from Stratford-upon-Avon, performing with the RSC and then to the National Theatre in London.

At the National, her lead part in the stage musical Carousel involved her performing the inspiring You'll Never Walk Alone.

She also took various minor movie parts, especially in the 1967 film To Sir, With Love, and the Jerry Lewis funny film Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.

Her stage and radio work demonstrated her range and won her accolades, but it was the small screen that gave Routledge with her best-known characters.

Television Success and Iconic Roles

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

Subsequently, one of Britain's esteemed writers, Alan Bennett, wrote a series of remarkable Talking Heads TV solos for her.

Routledge overcame her early reluctance to act his material and shone as A Woman of No Importance and A Lady of Letters.

She later play a isolated, mid-life department store assistant tipped into a affair with a kinky foot doctor in Bennett's Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet.

A comic performance as the exaggerated Kitty on The Victoria Wood Show resulted in the development of Hyacinth Bucket.

Routledge remembered being given the scripts by the author, the screenwriter—known for Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours.

"I had opened the script for a while at one o'clock in the morning," she said, "I went straight through and Hyacinth jumped off the script. I recognized that woman, I'd met a few of that type."

Keeping Up Appearances aired for five seasons and featured several Christmas specials.

In a film, she later claimed that fans had numbered the royal family and Pope Benedict XVI.

It turned into BBC Worldwide's most exported programme ever and meant Routledge was recognised as far away as Africa.

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

"I decided to end it to an end," she explained, "which, naturally, the broadcaster wasn't pleased with very much."

She thought that the writer was starting to repeat concepts and recalled a bit of advice from the performer, Ronnie Barker.

"He always left with audiences saying, ‘Oh, won't you do any more?’ she said, instead of people saying, ‘Is that still running?’"

Subsequent Work and Personal Life

Playing the unassuming but astute sleuth in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates brought her continued success on television, but she always called the stage as "the test."

Long after she stopped acting regularly on screen, Routledge undertook theatre tours equally in the United Kingdom and abroad.

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

She did not married or raised kids, but told the press of a couple of significant romances in her younger days, including one with a married man.

"I experienced remorse and an acute sense that there had to be pain," she admitted. "I suppose I convinced myself that it was all right for the moment because his union was not a living thing."

In place of family, she dedicated herself to her art, serving it with the skill, discipline and commitment that were consistently admired by her colleagues.

She was scathing about the BBC's decision in 2016 to revive Keeping Up Appearances, but this time placed in the 1950s and featuring a younger incarnation of her character.

Questioning the network's policy of resurrecting classic sitcoms she remarked, "Why are they attempting this sort of thing, they must be out of ideas."

She had already disagreed with the broadcaster over their decision to not order a documentary she had authored about the writer the children's author (Routledge was a supporter of the literary group), which finally aired on another network.

On turning 90, she continued to reside peacefully in the city, where she busied herself collecting funds for the church roof.

In 2017, she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire but—in contrast to her character—honors never go to her head.

Lady Routledge often said she thanked her Northern upbringing and stable family for giving her good sense with her life and her money.

Nonetheless, she admitted that, if any extra money arrive, she'd certainly use it on "several bottles of champagne"—an love of the finer things in existence that she had in common with her best-remembered creation.

"I was never theatre-obsessed," she said. "I am not stage-struck now. Nobody's more surprised than I am that I've, actually, devoted my life pursuing this."