Jean Boht, best known for playing Nellie Boswell in Carla Lane’s popular scouse sitcom Bread, has died aged 91, her family said.
The family said: “It is with overwhelming sadness that we must announce that Jean Boht passed away yesterday, Tuesday September 12.
“Jean had been battling vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with the indefatigable spirit for which she was both beloved and renowned.
“She was a resident at Denville Hall, the home for members of the theatrical profession.”
The actress was born in Bebington, in Merseyside, and was a pupil at Wirral Grammar School for Girls. She trained at the Liverpool Playhouse.
Bread screened on BBC1 for seven series from May 1986 to November 1991 and was one of the most popular shows of its era, achieving viewers of well over 20m at its peak. The series focused on the working-class Boswell family in Dingle, Liverpool.
The series derived much of its comedy from the family’s often madcap schemes to make enough to get by in the poverty-stricken Northern streets of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, although the show also won acclaim for its portrayal of families, love and relationships.
The show also attracted criticism in some quarters for its stereotypical portrayal of working class scousers, including from The Liverpool Echo’s former TV editor Peter Grant who told the BBC that Bread “didn’t do the city any great favours.”
Boht’s husband Carl Davis, the conductor and composer behind shows including the BBC’s 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice, died aged 86 in early August.
