EastEnders' Wendy 'dying of cancer'
05/10/2008 - 10:57
Former EastEnders star Wendy Richard has said that she is dying of cancer, after beating the disease twice.
The 65-year-old - who spent over two decades in the soap as Pauline Fowler - told the Sunday Express that she was diagnosed with a more aggressive form of cancer in January, three years after getting the all-clear from her second bout of breast cancer.
The disease was diagnosed after her annual check-up revealed cancerous cells in her left armpit.
She told the paper: "Now I have a cancerous growth on my right kidney and the cancer has spread to my bones."
"It's more aggressive this time, unfortunately, and has spread to the top of my spine and left ribs."
She added that she had spent the last five years in pain after contracting lymphoedema with her second bout of breast cancer - but that the pain had worsened this year. "Some nights I've just wanted to scream the place down," she said.
And she also said that since her diagnosis she had written her will and planned her funeral - and that she plans to marry John Burns, her partner of 12 years, before starting chemotherapy treatment on October 13.
Wendy sprang to fame in the 70s playing Miss Brahms in the sitcom Are You Being Served - but is best known for her role as Pauline Fowler in EastEnders.
She was one of the soap's original cast members, appearing in the very first episode in 1985 and leaving at the end of 2006.
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