81 Facts About Peggy Mitchell

Peggy Mitchell is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

Peggy Mitchell was reintroduced in 1994, recast to Barbara Windsor, who made her first appearance in the episode broadcast on 7 November 1994.

Peggy Mitchell became a regular character, and Windsor played the role until she was forced to take a long break due to poor health and departed on 23 May 2003.

Peggy Mitchell returned for two episodes broadcast on 16 and 17 September 2004, before rejoining as a regular character on 8 September 2005.

Peggy Mitchell then appeared in six episodes between 9 and 17 May 2016, where the character was killed off.

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Peggy Mitchell's voice is last heard in the following episode, on 19 May 2016.

Peggy Mitchell's storylines have seen her embark on a series of failed romances, including marriages to colleague Frank Butcher and then brother-in-law Archie Mitchell.

Peggy Mitchell has been central to several plot lines revolving around health issues, launching a hate campaign against the HIV positive character Mark Fowler, and going on to make amends with him when she is later diagnosed with breast cancer, which she recovers from.

The abuse eventually ended when Peggy Mitchell told the police that Eric was involved in a Post office robbery and he was sent to prison.

Peggy Mitchell considered leaving when her sons, Phil and Grant were teenagers, and once even tried to seduce Johnny, but he turned her down.

Peggy Mitchell tried to save her marriage by having another child in 1975 – her only daughter Samantha.

When Eric developed cancer, Peggy Mitchell gave up work to care for him until he eventually died in 1985.

Peggy Mitchell makes her first appearance in Albert Square when her son, Grant, decides to reenlist with the army and returns when her daughter Sam's desire to escape from her family causes her to elope with Ricky Butcher, at the age of sixteen.

Peggy Mitchell later accepts Sam and Ricky's relationship and leaves, after giving the couple her blessing.

Peggy Mitchell is not seen for three years, during which time her relationship with Kevin ends.

Peggy Mitchell becomes acting landlady of The Queen Victoria public house and blames Sharon for the affair.

Peggy Mitchell starts dating businessman George Palmer, unaware that he is a gangster involved in illegal money laundering.

Peggy Mitchell later realises she was wrong when she is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Peggy Mitchell initially refuses surgery and ends things with George, fearing that he will not be able to handle her illness.

Peggy Mitchell goes on to date local car lot owner, Frank Butcher, and they become engaged.

Peggy Mitchell has doubts about the wedding when her cancer returns and she has to have a mastectomy, but eventually decides to go through with it.

Peggy Mitchell discovers Frank is planning to leave her for his ex-wife, Pat Evans, so she shames them by reading Frank's Dear Jane letter to the entire pub and then slaps them both.

When Janine taunts her on Christmas Day about her father moving on, Peggy Mitchell begins drinking heavily and smashes up the pub with a baseball bat.

The next year, Peggy Mitchell is forced to sell the pub as Frank left her in debt, and is furious to discover the new owner is Sharon Watts.

Peggy Mitchell later begins dating Harry Slater, a womanizer who owns a bar in Spain and convinces her to move there with him.

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Peggy Mitchell later becomes sole licensee again when Sharon sells her half of the pub back to her.

Peggy Mitchell is briefly reunited with Frank when she travels to Spain to attend his funeral.

Peggy Mitchell discovers he faked his own death to avoid creditors.

Peggy Mitchell later decides to move to Brazil to be with Grant but visits Walford for Sam's wedding to Andy Hunter before returning to Brazil.

Later on, Peggy Mitchell learns from Sam that she is framed by Chrissie for the murder of the latter's late husband Den Watts.

Peggy Mitchell begins a romance with Jack Edwards, the father-in-law of Peggy Mitchell's nephew Billy.

However, when Peggy Mitchell discovers Billy's newborn daughter Janet has Down syndrome, she declares that the baby should be put up for adoption – causing friction in her relationship with Jack as a result.

Peggy Mitchell has Archie evicted from The Queen Vic and attempts to have Phil kill him in revenge, but she is left furious when Phil lets doesn't go through with it in the end.

When Peggy loses the bail surety she has paid on behalf of her daughter Sam, the Mitchells are forced to use The Queen Vic to gain a collateral loan from Phil's sworn arch-rival and estranged stepson Ian Beale.

Peggy Mitchell tries to stop Phil using crack by locking him in her pub, but Phil escapes and in a drunken bid for revenge, he sets fire to Peggy Mitchell's pub.

In September 2014, Peggy Mitchell appears in Portugal, telling Ronnie to go back to Walford and stop Phil from marrying Sharon.

Peggy Mitchell learns from Dot that Nick has died, and comforts her and invites her to move in with her and Grant in Portugal.

Peggy Mitchell is in on the secret that Ben's mother and Phil's ex-wife, Kathy Sullivan, had faked her own death ten years ago and wants to return to Walford.

Peggy Mitchell is disgusted to see that Phil has returned to alcoholism, but does give him Louise's address.

Peggy Mitchell then reveals her breast cancer has returned, and she is dying.

Peggy Mitchell is upset that she is refusing any more treatment, and takes her on a boat trip on the Thames, and back to their childhood home, to try to make her fight.

Peggy Mitchell tells them both she will not kill herself, and after talking with Dot and settling old feuds with Sharon and Stacey, Peggy receives a vision of her old friend, Pat.

Peggy Mitchell decides she wants to be remembered as a strong woman, not as an invalid, so takes a lethal overdose of pills that she hid from her sons and dies in her sleep that night.

Sharon later calms him down by revealing that Peggy Mitchell was the one who had Eric sent to prison when Phil was a child, not corrupt police officers as he was previously told, and that she did it to protect him.

Peggy Mitchell was introduced as a guest character in April 1991, by executive producer Michael Ferguson.

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Peggy Mitchell was played by actress Jo Warne for a period of three months, but was written out upon the completion of the storyline.

Peggy Mitchell was brought on as an extension of the Sharongate story because she was Phil and Grant's mum.

Peggy Mitchell has always done things her own way, and heaven help anyone who crosses her, though her bark's usually worse than her bite.

Hollingworth stated that Peggy Mitchell was "not going to be allowed to just sit in some flat polishing her nails".

Peggy Mitchell can get through practically anything because she's tough, tough, tough.

Peggy Mitchell has been central to numerous high-profile storylines, including a battle with breast cancer, a failed marriage to Frank Butcher, and various business and family upsets.

Peggy Mitchell was a character who audiences had only seen pulling pints behind the bar.

Peggy Mitchell thought George wouldn't love her any more after she'd had the operation.

In 2001, it was reported that Peggy Mitchell's character was one of only a few media portrayals of older females to be given the disease, and source organisations have praised EastEnders for this.

Tension was deliberately built for viewing pleasure, posing the questions of whether Peggy Mitchell's lump was benign or malignant and whether she would die, but in terms of Peggy Mitchell's relationships, whether her children would discover the truth or if George would end their relationship.

When Peggy Mitchell had a mastectomy, hundreds of viewers wrote to the BBC to thank producer, Matthew Robinson for tackling "a difficult subject so sensitively".

In 1998, Peggy Mitchell was romantically paired on-screen with the character Frank Butcher.

Together Frank and Peggy Mitchell ran The Queen Victoria, and were involved in various family and business crises, including a "tug-of-war" for their public house with "cuckoo-in-the-nest" Dan Sullivan.

Peggy Mitchell was written out of EastEnders in 2003, sent to live in Rio de Janeiro with her son Grant for two years, while Windsor took a sabbatical from the show after being diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus.

Windsor had previously never taken more than two weeks leave annually during her eight years on the show, as Peggy Mitchell was considered such a central character to the series.

Peggy Mitchell's absence coincided with a two-year ratings slump for EastEnders, with David Liddiment in The Guardian drawing direct correlation between her return and the show's "ratings rejuvenation".

In 2009 Peggy Mitchell ran as an independent candidate in the local council elections against Archie's wishes.

Writers wanted a storyline that allowed Peggy Mitchell to stand up for her beliefs, and felt that running for local government would allow her to speak passionately about the community.

Peggy Mitchell pulled out of the election at Archie's request ahead of their wedding, however the storyline set up a later episode in which Boris Johnson made a guest appearance in EastEnders.

The wedding outfit he had chosen for Peggy Mitchell was much nicer than the tatty net curtains that even Miss Havisham would have rejected that the 'real Peggy Mitchell' chose to marry in.

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However, the marriage lasts only as long as the reception; when Peggy realises Archie has been manipulating other members of his family, Peggy throws him out and a feud ignites between Archie and the Mitchell clan.

Peggy Mitchell is a truly iconic character, and along with Steve McFadden and Ross Kemp, Barbara has made the Mitchells the premier family of British soap.

In Peggy Mitchell, Barbara has created one of the greatest ever characters on British television, someone who has become as synonymous with EastEnders as The Queen Vic itself.

On 3 May 2016, it was revealed that Peggy Mitchell would refuse treatment and decide to spend time with her family.

On 25 January 2022, the voice of Peggy Mitchell is heard by Phil, who is contemplating whether to become an informant for the police, or spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Phil hears Peggy Mitchell's voice, telling him “Phil, you gotta get out there and defend what's yours” and “You're surrounded by people who love you, just try to love yourself…”.

Peggy Mitchell won Best Actress at the 1999 British Soap Awards, and was granted a Lifetime Achievement award in 2009.

Peggy Mitchell won a Lifetime Achievement award at the 2001 Inside Soap awards, and was named the UK's top soap matriarch in a 2009 Inside Soap poll.

Peggy Mitchell won the Soap Legend award at the 2009 TV Now Awards.

Character was viewed unfavourably by a proportion of viewers in 1996, when Peggy Mitchell discovered that Mark Fowler was HIV positive and subsequently mounted a hate campaign against him.

In order for Peggy Mitchell to be redeemed, she had to be seen to be punished, and so the character was given breast-cancer later that year.

Peggy Mitchell calls on Mark and tells him she now knows what it is like to suffer as he has.

EastEnders has received praise for the handling of Peggy Mitchell's breast cancer storyline, as she was a rare media portrayal of an older matriarchal woman with the disease.

The storyline was criticised because Peggy Mitchell received her cancer test results after six days, which prompted cancer charities to warn that not all patients would receive the same treatment.

Peggy Mitchell has been spoofed in several programmes, including the ITV cartoon sketch show 2DTV, and Harry Hill's TV Burp.

In November 2005, Peggy Mitchell appeared in a sketch for Children in Need, which was a crossover between EastEnders and The Catherine Tate Show.