Penelope Keith obituary - 'I thought I'd be the funny girl'

She epitomised the social-climbing, curtain-twitching snob - and we adored her for it. Dame Penelope Keith, who has died aged 86 of cancer, became one of Britain's best-loved actors playing some of the most toe-curlingly snobbish characters imaginable. She came to prominence as the gloriously snooty Margot Leadbetter in the Good Life opposite Paul Eddington, as her hen-pecked husband Jerry, and Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal as their self-sufficient neighbours Tom and Barbara Good.

Beneath Margo's haughty exterior was a soft centre and Keith's blend of vulnerability and impeccable comic timing, famously delivered in her glass-cut vowels, earned her a BAFTA in 1977 and a place in the nation's hearts forever after. Her incredible career spanned five decades of television, film, radio and theatre.

Felicity Kendal, the last surviving member of the Good Life's main cast, last night led tributes to Keith, who died peacefully at home in Surrey where she had lived for 50 years.

"I am deeply saddened to hear of my friend Penelope's death," she said. "The shows I worked on with her were such special times in our lives and demonstrated her comic genius. My heart goes out to her beloved Rodney at this time, theirs was a great love story and partnership. She was a joy to know and work with, and she will be much missed."

A statement from her family said the actress had "died peacefully whilst living with cancer" at her home. It added: "The family is grateful for the care and support she received throughout her treatments, and ask that their privacy be respected at this time."

Following the Good Life, Keith enjoyed another upper-class role in three hit series of To The Manor Born playing widowed aristocrat Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, who manages to keep her Rolls-Royce and butler after moving into a small lodge on her former estate. The final episode watched 24 million people cemented her place in British popular culture as "posh" - yet despite her famously patrician voice, she came from humble beginnings.

She was born Penelope Hatfield at the height of the Second World War in Sutton, Surrey, in 1940, the daughter of Frederick Hatfield, an army officer, who left her mother Constance, known as Connie, when she was a baby.

Connie trained as a secretary but later worked as a chamber maid and barmaid at a hotel in Forest Row, East Sussex - where a young Penelope was outside in her pram "in case the doodlebugs came over".

Raised in Clapham, south London, her mother's constant need to work meant she spent lots of time with her grandparents. Despite the family not being religious, she was sent to a Catholic boarding school aged six run by French nuns in Seaford, East Sussex, where she received elocution lessons and developed an interest in acting.

"The nuns loved putting on plays," she told Gyles Brandreth on his podcast Rosebud last year. "[My friend] Jane and I always played the lead - I was the man, of course, because I was so tall."

The experience formed her acting ambitions. "I apparently came home from school one day and sat in the bath and said to my mother that when I grow older I was going to be either a nun or an actress," she told Michael Parkinson in 1977.

"She was a bit taken aback and said, 'Darling, nuns can't wear pretty clothes'. So I said, 'Well, I'll be an actress then'."