Angie Watts made a dramatic return to EastEnders – 25 years after being killed off. Anita Dobson, 75, took on the role of Angie back in 1985, starring alongside Leslie Grantham as 'Dirty' Den Watts, her on-screen husband as they became the first landlord and land lady of the Queen Vic. But Anita wasn't the first actress to play the legendary Angie, she took over the role from Jean Fennell who had already started filming – but decided she didn't "gel" with the character.
Despite only being on the show for three years, Anita created a lasting legacy with Angie and took on some of the most dramatic storylines in soap history. In a role which hadn't previously been seen before, Angie became an alcoholic, a major break from TV storylines which had predominantly been focused around men.
But this wasn't the only drama surrounding Angie – on Boxing Day 1986, a staggering 30.15 million people tuned in to see Den slap Angie with divorce papers on the stairs of the Queen Vic. This record is yet to be beaten by any other TV soap opera. But after just three years on the show, Angie bowed out and vowed not to return.
Refusing to return, Anita previously said: "Why tarnish the gorgeous creation that was Angie Watts?" This cemented the decision from bosses to kill Angie off, off-screen. In 2002, she died from alcohol poisoning and returned to Walford to be buried by her daughter, Sharon Watts.
Away from the show, Anita has a very different life and is married to a global rockstar – Queen guitarist, Sir Brian May. The couple styled Sir and Lady May, met one another in 1986 but tied the knot in a low-key yet romantic ceremony at a registry office in Richmond upon Thames, London, in 2000.
Speaking about their first interaction, Anita told the Daily Mail: "He invited me to see Queen play at Wembley, with some friends. Meeting my husband opened a door to a world I'd hitherto only dreamed of. Here was a man who was a god globally." Shortly after their meeting, the couple jetted off to Venice for their honeymoon to kickstart their married life.
However, in the same year of their wedding, disaster struck for Sir and Lady May – with Brian suffering a heart attack and Anita saving his life. Anita, initially brushed off Brian's symptoms, with her explaining to the Mail: "He said, 'Babe, I think I'm having a heart attack', I said 'No, you've been exercising and you've overdone it'." At the time of the attack, Brian was recovering from a torn muscle and trapped nerve, which he had sustained while gardening.
Speaking on BBC's Morning Live, Brian commented: "She did save my life. I had this whole cluster of things go wrong. It was a good job it was lockdown in a way but I was incapacitated with the heart attack, complications from the drugs, then I had sciatica so badly. I couldn't even crawl.".
Reflecting further on his health, Brian couldn't help but sing Anita's praises, saying: "So when you get that bad, you're just grateful to be alive at the end of it and its thanks to Anita that I am, she's been there the whole way through it. She's taken care of me and nursed me and whatever.".
Anita has an extensive acting career that goes beyond EastEnders. She's appeared in a variety of TV shows including Dangerfield, Ghosts, Sunburn, Hotel Babylon, Holby City, The Bill, and the comedy series The Rebel. It's not just TV roles that Anita is known for as she has also appeared in a string of stage productions, including Chorus Girls, Chicago, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Wicked. In 2011, she put her theatre and stage school experience to practise after signing up for Strictly Come Dancing – dancing with professional star, Robin Windsor. But things didn't go to plan, with Anita being eliminated during week nine.
More recently, Anita portrayed Eunice Lytton in the 2025 edition of Father Brown, and had a busy year last year with roles as Janine in Generation Z (2024), Janet in Curfew (2024), Mrs Flood in Doctor Who, and Mrs. Mentis in the film This Time Next Year. While Anita's character of Angie may have been killed off over two decades ago, she made a dramatic appearance during the 40th anniversary episode – from beyond the grave.
As her daughter Sharon lay in a lucid state of unconsciousness, Angie appeared alongside Sharon who lay trapped by rubble on the stairs after the Vic exploded. Angie told her to start screaming for help and that it wasn't her time for them to be reunited just yet. "You're not giving up on us, are you Sharon?" Angie asked her. "Hello, darling! I've missed you so much." As Sharon tells her that she's cold, Angie replied: "I know baby and I wish I could just put my arms round you and give you a great big hug but it's not time for us to be together yet darling." When Sharon admitted that she's scared, Angie replied: "We're all scared aren't we? Look at me - spent my whole life being scared. But you've got to keep fighting, Sharon.".
