June Brown can't afford to quit 'EastEnders'.
June Brown
The 89-year-old actress - who plays Dot Branning in the long-running soap - admitted that she has no plans to leave the show because she doesn't have enough savings.
She told The Sun: "I can't afford to retire. I never had the money to start a pension - I didn't start to make any real money until I was 58 - and now it's not worth much.
"I've always been afraid of being poor when I'm old. It's a dreadful thing to be strapped for cash when you are elderly. It's awful when you're young, too, but you always have hope."
However, she has another reason for remaining in the show, as June admitted she would be bored if she quit working.
She said: "As long as I am capable of ¬working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on. I'd be utterly bored if I stopped.
"I don't think I look nearly 90 but because I can't see these days I don't know.
"You don't think about your age - you just knock it down."
Meanwhile, despite her successful career, June has faced tragedy in her personal life and she opened up about the suicide of her husband John Garley in 1957, when he gassed himself at the flat they shared.
She said: "I walked into the bedroom and there was Johnny, lying on the bed, the gas fire propped up next to him.
I tried giving him ¬artificial respiration. Suicide was still a criminal offence in the late-Fifties. But after an hour, I realised I'd better call an ambulance. I'd got him breathing again but it was obvious he'd suffered severe brain damage.
"He lasted three days in hospital before dying on May 8. We'd been married seven years. I was 30."
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