At the age of 76, acclaimed actor Anita Dobson has no desire to break into the world of fame with more reality TV appearances.
AS landlady Angie Watts, actress Anita Dobson was the self-proclaimed ‘queen’ of The Queen Vic in EastEnders. But she could have ended 2025 with yet another crown as Queen of the Jungle.
ITV chiefs wanted her to sign for I’m A Celebrity and join the likes of Angry Ginge, Aitch, Kelly Brook and fellow Albert Square favourite Shona McGarty in the Australian camp. However, Anita turned the offer down.
She revealed: “They did ask me and I said No. I would never. There is not enough money in the world to make me go on that programme. It’s having to eat and do all those stupid things and being stuck with the same people all the time that you didn’t choose to go on holiday with. No. I couldn’t do it.”
It is a shame because it would have topped a very exciting year for the 76-year-old actress. She not only reprised her iconic role as the late Angie Watts in the special 40 th anniversary episode of EastEnders back in February – appearing in a surprise vision to her daughter Sharon (Letitia Dean). But her character of Mrs Flood caused huge excitement among Doctor Who fans when she was unveiled as the legendary villain The Rani in the BBC One sci-fi series in May.
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Anita admits to keeping secrets, but she couldn’t reveal what she was up to with other than her husband and Queen guitarist Brian May. And she will have to do it in 2026 because she is unable to discuss a different role in a production.
The star confided: “The thing is that everybody tells you to keep quiet. Last year, I had to keep so many secrets. Although it’s been ridiculous, I still have some things to work on. I have got a part. Although it’s not quite like Mrs. Flood (from Doctor Who), it does occasionally appear in new episodes.
Believe it or not, actress Anita, who was born in Stepney, east London, has been a model since she was four years old. But she insists she didn’t choose acting, it chose her. She stated, “It wasn’t really me who made the decision to become an actress. It was my choice.” When my grandfather and my mother took me to a pantomime in Hackney when I was four years old, it turns out that I performed the entire thing live alongside the actors. It must have been really annoying for them and then I went home and did the whole show again for my family. You wanna watch her, my grandfather said to my mother. She has blood that smells like sawdust. And this was at four years old”.
After training at The Webber Douglas Academy of Performing Arts in London, she landed her first acting role in a Christmas show called The Saga Of Sir Sing-a-Lot. And she laughs: “And he did!
” The show was done up north and it was so cold and I didn’t know anybody and it was long hours and it wasn’t a particularly happy company as we had problems with various things and I thought I am never going to hack this. So I called my father, who said, “I wanna come home,” and he said, “If you get through this one, everything else will be easy.” And he was correct.
Anita landed presenting work on the children’s show PlayAway and then acting roles in the The Nanny and Partners In Crime and even the Jim Davidson comedy Up The Elephant and Round The Castle. However, when she was cast as Angie Watts in EastEnders for three years, she became a household name in the role.
A record-seeking 30 million viewers watched the 1986 Christmas special starring her cheating husband ” Dirty ” Den “the late Leslie Grantham ” who presented her with divorce papers. She still has fond memories of the soap and its cast adding:” A lot of the people who were in it back in the old days have either left or passed on but I remember I loved playing Ange so much. Lesley and Letitia were a wonderful addition to my family. A gift, indeed.
“The scripts were so good in those early days. We simply were it, not that we had to think. It was fantastic. We were a happy family. The East End was a wonderful experience because, regardless of how awful it was, we always tried to laugh about it whenever possible, and those early scripts definitely capture that.
It was during 1986 that she met Queen star Brian May and she got to know his fellow band members including the late Freddie Mercury very well. She and Brian married in 2000.
And she makes fun of how the fans assumed that the two had the same hairstyle because they both had black bushy hair then. She chuckles, “I think Brian did his hair, and I did mine”!
Anita, who is also a singer and scored a top five hit in 1986 with Anyone Can Fall In Love, has been by the musician’s side for 40 years. She was there to support him through his brief heart attack in 2020, and she was there to support him through his brief stroke in 2024.
He is particularly interested in her acting work. Asked if he was a fan of Doctor Who before she landed the role as The Rani, she says: “I think he did love The Daleks. He did watch it when he was younger, as a boy, just like we did. That was my preferred method when I was younger. But then I think he kind of forgot about it. He is a NASA employee, which meant he was interested in bigger things. But I believe I should have been because he became more interested. He keeps saying ‘ They should bring The Daleks back. Don’t you believe? I believe in it too.
Asked if she would like to reprise her role as the villain on the show, she says without hesitation: “Just give me a call”.
When she isn’t working, Anita admits that weekends are precious because she is a “home bird.” She states that “Sundays are the best days to chill out.” I like to get up late then. Although I enjoy a nice stroll through the garden, I prefer to be indoors. And I also have cooking time on Sunday. Not cooking because you have to eat but actually thinking about what you are going to cook and experimenting a bit”.
With all of her culinary prowess, it’s fragile whether she would join Celebrity MasterChef if she didn’t do I’m A Celebrity. That’s not a no either, though.
She explains: “No. Cooking under pressure is not what I like. And I dislike it when someone constantly glances over my shoulder and watches me. It would drive me mad. Cooking is enough agonizing. Why do you annoy me while cooking, asks my husband, “You’re in my way and I need you to move.”
But she did do Strictly in 2011 (and lasted for nine weeks) as it meant learning a new talent. She continues, “It was the only thing I would do, but I adored it and had a great time too.”
Given that she has at least two well-known roles on her resume, it is worthwhile to inquire about whether any of the roles she wished she had been given or if any of them would have been missed. But she told fans at a ComicCon event in Somerset: “I am very philosophical. If you are patient, it will go to someone else, who will receive yours if you are kind.
” I have never been jealous of anyone and I just think ‘ Keep working! Don’t worry about what you don’t have, instead do everything you can with everything. Concentrate on what you possess.
Source: Mirror
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