Quotes

I still just love acting! Most of us agree it's like a child's game, really; doesn't seem like a serious job at all. I love doing comedy.

[on being awarded the MBE in June 2010] Thrilled and delighted and amazed.

I don't trust journalists as far as I can throw them. My family were all in newspapers.

As you get older the phone stops ringing, which is inevitable because people stop asking for you.

Newspapers are much more intrusive today. People discuss their intimate sex lives in detail. I wouldn't. Well, I have nothing to talk about.

I don't want to be immodest, but I'm pretty versatile - I can do comedy as well as drama. A teacher at RADA told me I'd have difficulty because I don't fit into a particular slot.

Acting is enormous fun. I work extremely hard, but I'm not going to sit here and be solemn. It's a weird way to earn a living. None of us are grown-up.

I'd rather have an an Oscar and a million pounds than be a dame.

Writing is the most important thing for me. I always ask who wrote a new script. Actors phone and say they have a wonderful part - but don't know who it's by. When my husband was head of drama at Granada in the 1970s he always said writing was decisive. Then they started making vehicles for actors who became famous in soaps, which wasn't wise because they come and go. It's a tough old world.

I love comfort television beautifully done - Poirot [Poirot (1989)], Foyle's War (2002), Miss Marple [Agatha Christie's Marple (2004)].

Theatre is nerve-racking, but you have to put yourself through it, like training for an athlete. It sorts out the men from the boys.

Friends think I'm insane doing a cabaret show of stories and songs about my life, but I've talked about it for 30 years.

Singing makes me feel good even though I don't have a great voice.

Some people thought I regretted being in Coronation Street (1960). I didn't, but it became tedious when the show was all anyone wanted to talk about because it was so famous. I haven't seen it for years. I don't watch soaps.

I love to socialise, but also to be on my own. I don't think I've ever been lonely. I sit and think - there's always something going on in my head - or play my piano.

Posh people had gone out of fashion at the time, with kitchen-sink dramas and actors like Peter O'Toole and Albert Finney. Now the Etonians are back with a vengeance. So long as they can act, darling, I don't mind. Some can't, but that's a matter of opinion and I'm not going to criticise anyone.

[on The Benny Hill Show (1969)] It has a bad name now, but it was popular worldwide and done in all innocence by my generation. Today everyone is politically correct and takes things far too seriously. Certain behaviour is no longer acceptable, but I suppose you have to go through that to get everyone treated fairly. Of course it will never happen in my lifetime.