Barbara Windsor's husband convinced EastEnders bosses to kill off Peggy Mitchell a few years after learning of her Alzheimer's diagnosis.
On Wednesday (May 9), the actress announced that she was officially retiring from acting and revealed she had been fighting the degenerative disease for five years, having first been diagnosed in 2013.
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After struggling to remember her lines on the set of EastEnders, Barbara's husband Scott Mitchell has revealed it was his idea to write Peggy out of the soap, as BBC bosses were at first reluctant to kill off such an iconic character.
Scott told The Sun: "Barbara contacted the (then-)executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins to make the suggestion and, at first, he said, 'I can't kill an iconic character'.
"So I went to see him and, without giving the full situation, confided that she was really struggling to learn lines and wouldn't ever be coming back again after this.
"I asked that she have an autocue on set, just as a safety net. But in the end, she just used it to refresh her memory between takes. If you saw the Peggy death scenes, you could see she wasn't reading it.
"Ironically, I think it's some of the best work she ever did. I was incredibly proud of her."
On EastEnders, Peggy took her own life in 2016 after learning her cancer had returned.
Windsor's co-stars Pam St Clement and Ross Kemp have both shared their love for the actress following her announcement.
Barbara herself is said to be "thrilled to bits" at the public outpouring of support extended towards her since the announcement.
EastEnders airs on BBC One.
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