Mollie Sugden, the television actress best known for her portrayal of the cat-obsessed Betty Slocombe in Are You Being Served?, died tonight at the age of 86.

The actress, who was born in July 1922 in Keighley, West Yorkshire, became a household name after appearing - in a variety of brightly coloured wigs - as the social-climbing matriarch in the comedy series between 1972 and 1975. She also portrayed Mrs Hutchinson, another battleaxe, in The Liver Birds.

Joan Reddin, Mrs Sugden’s agent, said that her twin sons, Robin and Simon Moore, were at her bedside when she died at the Royal Surrey Hospital after a long illness.

Ms Reddin, who began representing Sugden in the 1960s, said: “I represented her for more than 30 years and I was a very close friend as well. She had had a long illness and various problems but it was very quick in the end.

“She was a lovely, lovely person and I never had any trouble with her. She was a great professional.”

Sugden, who lived in Surrey, never recovered from the death of her husband, William Moore, who was also an actor, Ms Reddin said. “They were very much in love. She started to go down when he died.”

She added that Mrs Sugden explored a wide variety of roles throughout her career.

As well as her most famous roles, she was the star of many other comedies, including Come Back Mrs Noah, That’s My Boy and My Husband And I, which she made with Moore. Indeed, such was her popularity in America that at the age of 71 she was asked to appear in Donizetti’s opera La Fille Du Regiment in a non-singing role.

Sugden trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her early career was spent in repertory theatre, where in Swansea in 1956, she met Moore.

They married two years later, when she was 35 and he was 39. Their sons were born six years later.

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