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Lady Patricia Routledge, who passed away at the years of 96, made her mark on the British psyche as the snobby Mrs. Bucket.

Insisting it was "said Bouquet," Hyacinth trampled over her long-suffering husband and bewildered neighbours in Keeping Up Appearances, one of Britain's most successful sitcoms in the 1990s.

Acting like a aristocrat while residing in a suburb, Hyacinth's monstrous social-climbing schemes were in the end doomed to failure—while she battled to maintain her composure.

It was Dame Routledge's best-known part in a professional life that saw her earn theatrical honors on both sides of the ocean, emerge as the lead of the playwright's famous TV monologues, and become BBC1's crime-busting Hetty Wainthropp.

Formative Years and Career Beginnings

Katherine Pat Routledge was delivered in Merseyside on 17 February 1929.

Her dad was a haberdasher and she later recalled sheltering from German air raids in the cellar of his shop throughout the war.

She studied literature at local the University of Liverpool and intended to become a teacher. Instead, she joined the local theatre before studying at the Bristol Old Vic.

Her prosperous stage journey took her from the provinces to the West End, and finally to Broadway, where the composer chose her to appear in his musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1976.

She had previously won a Tony award for her acting in Darling of the Day.

She could transition smoothly from comedies to serious drama.

She went from Stratford-upon-Avon, performing with the RSC and later to the National Theatre in London.

There, her lead part in the theatre production Carousel involved her performing the rousing You'll Never Walk Alone.

There were also various minor movie parts, notably in 1967's To Sir, With Love, and the Jerry Lewis funny film Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.

Her stage and radio work proved her versatility and earned her accolades, but it was television that provided Routledge with her best-known characters.

Television Breakthrough and Memorable Characters

Initial small-screen work included popular shows like Z Cars and Steptoe and Son.

Subsequently, one of Britain's most respected playwrights, Alan Bennett, wrote a set of outstanding Talking Heads TV monologues for her.

Routledge overcame her initial hesitation to perform his scripts and excelled as A Woman of No Importance and A Lady of Letters.

She went onto play a lonely, mid-life department store clerk tipped into a affair with a kinky foot doctor in Bennett's Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet.

A humorous performance as the exaggerated character on The Victoria Wood Show resulted in the creation of Hyacinth Bouquet.

Routledge remembered being given the episodes by the writer, the screenwriter—who had also done Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours.

"I opened the script for a moment at one o'clock in the night," she recalled, "I went straight through and Hyacinth leapt off the script. I recognized that woman, I'd met a few of that woman."

Keeping Up Appearances ran for five series and included four holiday episodes.

In a documentary, she later claimed that admirers had included the royal family and Pope Benedict XVI.

It turned into the broadcaster's most-sold show ever and ensured Routledge was recognised as far away as Africa.

For her work on the sitcom, she was voted the UK's all-time best-loved actor in 1996, but following five years in the part, she felt it was time for a change.

"I decided to end it to an close," she explained, "which, naturally, the BBC didn’t care for at all."

She believed that the writer was starting to recycle concepts and recalled a bit of guidance from the comedian, Ronnie Barker.

"He always left with people saying, ‘Oh, won't you do any more?’ she recalled, rather than people remarking, ‘Is that still running?’"

Later Roles and Private Reflections

Playing the unassuming but astute detective in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates brought her ongoing popularity on television, but she consistently called the theatre as "the real challenge."

Long after she stopped appearing frequently on television, Routledge undertook stage travels both in the United Kingdom and overseas.

If journalists posed the inevitable question, she requested them to write the word retirement since, she explained: "It isn't in my lexicon."

She never married or raised kids, but informed the press of a couple of significant romances in her youth, including one with a married man.

"I experienced guilt and an sharp sense that there had to be loss," she confessed. "I suppose I convinced myself that it was acceptable for the time being as his union was not a living thing."

In place of family, she devoted herself to her art, serving it with the talent, discipline and devotion that were always admired by her peers.

She was scathing about the BBC's choice in 2016 to revive Keeping Up Appearances, but on this occasion set in the 1950s and featuring a more youthful version of her role.

Questioning the Corporation's policy of rebooting old comedies she remarked, "For what reason are they doing this sort of project, they have to be out of ideas."

She had already disagreed with the BBC over its decision to not commission a film she had authored about the writer Beatrix Potter (she was a supporter of the Beatrix Potter Society), which eventually broadcast on Channel 4.

On turning 90, she continued to live quietly in the city, where she occupied herself collecting money for the church roof.

In 2017, she became a Dame Commander of the British honors system but—unlike Hyacinth—titles never affect her head.

Lady Patricia always said she credited her north of England upbringing and solid family for providing her good sense with her time and her finances.

Even so, she admitted that, if any additional cash arrive, she'd certainly spend it on "a case of sparkling wine"—an love of the finer things in life that she had in common with her best-remembered creation.

"I never was theatre-obsessed," she declared. "I'm not theatre-obsessed today. No one is as amazed than I am that I've, in fact, devoted my life pursuing acting."