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Lady Patricia Routledge, who has died at the age of 96, made her mark on the British consciousness as the pretentious Mrs. Bouquet.

Declaring it was "pronounced Bouquet," Hyacinth ran roughshod over her patient husband and bewildered neighbours in Keeping Up Appearances, one of Britain's best-loved sitcoms in the 1990s.

Behaving like a aristocrat while living in a suburban area, Hyacinth's over-the-top status-seeking schemes were in the end doomed to failure—while she struggled to keep her composure.

It was Lady Routledge's best-known part in a career that included her earn theatrical honors on both sides of the ocean, emerge as the star of Alan Bennett's famous TV soliloquies, and star as BBC1's crime-busting Mrs. Wainthropp.

Formative Years and Career Beginnings

Catherine Patricia Routledge was born in Birkenhead on February 17 1929.

Her dad was a haberdasher and she remembered taking cover from enemy air raids in the basement of his shop during the Second World War.

She majored in literature at local Liverpool University and intended to become a teacher. Rather, she entered the Liverpool Playhouse prior to training at the Bristol Old Vic.

Her successful stage journey brought her from the regions to the West End, and eventually to New York, where Leonard Bernstein selected her to star in his musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1976.

She had already won a Tony award for her performance in Darling of the Day.

She could transition smoothly from comedies to serious drama.

She went from Shakespeare's birthplace, appearing with the RSC and later to the National Theatre in the capital.

There, her lead role in the theatre production Carousel featured her performing the inspiring You'll Never Walk Alone.

She also took various minor film roles, especially in the 1967 film To Sir, With Love, and the Jerry Lewis funny film Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.

Her theatre and broadcast performances proved her versatility and won her accolades, but it was television that gave Routledge with her best-known characters.

Television Breakthrough and Memorable Characters

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

Subsequently, among Britain's most respected writers, the dramatist, penned a series of remarkable Talking Heads TV solos for her.

Routledge conquered her initial reluctance to perform his material and excelled as A Woman of No Importance and A Lady of Letters.

She went onto portray a isolated, mid-life shop assistant tipped into a affair with a kinky foot doctor in Bennett's Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet.

A humorous performance as the larger-than-life character on The Victoria Wood Show led to the creation of Mrs. Bucket.

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

"I had opened the script for a moment at one o'clock in the morning," she recalled, "I went straight through and the character leapt off the script. I knew that lady, I knew several of that type."

Keeping Up Appearances aired for five series and featured four holiday specials.

In a film, she stated that admirers had included the royal family and the pontiff.

It turned into the broadcaster's most exported show of all time and ensured Routledge was known as far away as Africa.

For her work on the comedy, she was voted the UK's all-time favourite actress in 1996, but after five years in the role, she felt it was the moment for a new direction.

"I decided to end it to an end," she said, "which, of course, the BBC wasn't pleased with very much."

She thought that Roy Clarke was beginning to repeat concepts and mentioned a piece of guidance from the comedian, Ronnie Barker.

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

Subsequent Work and Personal Life

Playing the unassuming but astute detective in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates brought her ongoing popularity on TV, but she always referred to the stage as "the real challenge."

Long after she stopped appearing regularly on screen, Routledge made stage travels both in the United Kingdom and abroad.

If interviewers posed the predictable question, she asked them to write the word withdrawal because, she explained: "It's not in my vocabulary."

She never married or raised kids, but informed interviewers of a couple of significant romances in her younger days, including one with a married man.

"I felt remorse and an sharp feeling that there would be pain," she admitted. "I suppose I convinced myself that it was all right for the time being because his marriage was not a living relationship."

In place of family, she devoted herself to her craft, honoring it with the skill, discipline and devotion that were consistently respected by her colleagues.

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

Challenging the network's approach of resurrecting old comedies she remarked, "Why are they doing this kind of project, they have to be desperate."

She had previously disagreed with the BBC over its move to not commission a film she had authored about the author Beatrix Potter (she was a Patron of the Beatrix Potter Society), which finally broadcast on Channel 4.

Upon reaching 90, she continued to live peacefully in Chichester, where she busied herself raising funds for the cathedral structure.

In 2017, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire but—unlike Hyacinth—titles did not affect her mind.

Dame Routledge often stated she credited her north of England roots and solid background for giving her practicality with her time and her money.

Nonetheless, she admitted that, if any extra cash come her way, she'd definitely spend it on "a case of champagne"—an appreciation of the finer pleasures in life that she had in common with her best-remembered creation.

"I never was stage-struck," she declared. "I am not stage-struck now. Nobody's as amazed than myself that I have, actually, devoted my life pursuing acting."