Patricia Routledge, the stage and screen actor best known for starring as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances and Henrietta “Hetty” Wainthropp in the television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, has died at the age of 96. “We are deeply saddened to confirm the passing of Dame Patricia Routledge, who died peacefully in her sleep this morning surrounded by love,” said her agent. The actor found further success on television in the 1980s in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV and Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, and the following decade in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. However, it was as the chronically pretentious housewife Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances – which aired between 1990 and 1995 – that Routledge was perhaps best known. “She was an actor of remarkable range, but her portrayal of Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances has to be one of the most iconic performances in British comedy,” he said.