The actor Anna Karen, who has died in a house fire aged 85, was already appearing in a TV sitcom, Wild, Wild Women, as one of the workers in a millinery sweatshop, in 1969 when she was cast in another, in the role for which she is best remembered – Olive Rudge in the bawdy but hugely popular On the Buses.
The writing team of Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, who created both programmes, conceived Olive as the dowdy, put-upon wife of the idle Arthur (played by Michael Robbins). They would appear alongside Reg Varney as Olive’s brother, the bus driver Stan Butler, Bob Grant as his conductor, Jack, Stephen Lewis as their boss, Inspector “Blakey” Blake, and Doris Hare as Olive and Stan’s domineering mother. (Hare was the original choice for the role but was out of the country when the programme began, so was replaced for the first series by Cicely Courtneidge.)
Halfway through the run of Wild, Wild Women, Karen fell ill with flu, but continued filming. “Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe happened to be at rehearsals,” she told the journalist Richard Webber. “I felt and looked dreadful, but they said I was ideal for Olive.
“The writers wanted her to look a mess, so I didn’t wear make-up, wore a wig that made my head look flat and had padding around my stomach to look plump. I based her on someone I knew in South Africa who was always desperate for men. She was terribly insecure, which applied to Olive, too.”
The humour was based around Olive’s inability to cook and mentions of her husband’s “operation” as she weathered a barrage of misogynistic jokes from him. Her suggestions of an “early night” were invariably rebuffed.
Although panned by the critics, On the Buses was an instant success, attracting up to 16 million viewers and running for seven series and 74 episodes, and ending in 1973 with Olive and Arthur’s divorce. There were also three spin-off films, On the Buses, which was the biggest British box office hit of 1971, Mutiny On the Buses (1972) and Holiday On the Buses (1973).
Curiously, the part of Olive was transferred to another workplace sitcom, The Rag Trade (1977-78), when Chesney and Wolfe revived their 1960s hit about a modern-day sweatshop, Fenner’s Fashions, with Peter Jones and Miriam Karlin reprising their roles as Harold Fenner, the boss, and Paddy Fleming, the “militant” shop steward.
Later, Karen appeared in the soap EastEnders as Aunt Sal – Sallie Martin – sister of Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor) and aunt to Grant and Phil Mitchell (Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden), on and off from 1996 to 2017, usually turning up at family weddings and parties.
Anna was born Ann McCall in Durban, South Africa, to John McCall, an accountant, and Muriel (nee Harrison). From deciding at the age of six that she wanted to be a vet, she switched her ambitions to acting after seeing the 1944 film National Velvet. She trained for three years at the South African National Theatre before moving to Britain when she was 16 with her mother and sister following the death of her father.
When her family continued on their travels, she enrolled at Lamda in London to train as an actor. To fund herself through drama school, she performed as a striptease artist at the Panama Club and other London venues. “It was here I learned more about stage timings and entertaining a live audience than anyone can teach you at drama school,” she said. “I absorbed everything and even went on tour with brothers Syd and Max Harrison with their pantomime stage act.”
She and other strippers had to adopt names from “the continent” and she changed hers to Anna Karen to sound Scandinavian. She then lived for several years in Italy, where her first husband, Dick Smart, whom she married in 1957, was training to be an opera singer. She returned to Britain when the marriage broke up, rode elephants in a Christmas circus and appeared in the 1960 naturist film Nudist Memories.
Karen worked with Syd and Max Harrison again in the film comedy The Sandwich Man (1966), starring Michael Bentine, and had a bit part as a neighbour in the director Ken Loach’s first feature film, Poor Cow (1967).
Then, she was cast in the film comedy Carry On Camping (1969) as one of the finishing school “girls” seen in a catfight with Windsor and in the keep-fit scene. This led to a lifelong friendship with Windsor – Karen played Maude alongside her in Wild, Wild Women. She also had a small role in Carry On Loving (1970), minus Windsor, as a newlywed who has a plate of jelly pushed down the front of her dress.
Fame from On the Buses brought Karen a starring role in the TV sitcom Troubles and Strife (1985-86) as the gin-swilling church caretaker Rosita Pearlman, a power behind the throne at St Anselm’s parish church. She also played the RatCave receptionist, Maureen McConkey, in Roland Rat: The Series (1986).
On stage, she starred in national tours of the Ray Cooney farce Not Now Darling (1974), the Nell Dunn play Steaming (1984) and the Michael Frayn comedy Noises Off (1991), as well as appearing in many summer seasons and pantomimes, and directing Theatre in Education productions at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
In 1967, Karen married the actor Terry Duggan, who worked with her many times on screen and stage; he died in 2008. She is survived by Gloria, Duggan’s daughter from his previous marriage.
• Anna Karen (Ann Harrison McCall), actor, born 19 September 1936; died 22 February 2022
• This article was amended on 24 February 2022, to correct Anna Karen’s maiden name, and to add the names of her parents and her first husband.
