From playing social climber Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life to aristocrat Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To The Manor Born, Dame Penelope Keith was known for her snobby yet loveable and humorous characters.

The class comic actor has died, aged 86, during a battle with cancer, her family says.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Dame Penelope Keith died peacefully while living with cancer at her home in Surrey where she had lived for more than 50 years,” the announcement read.

Penelope Keith with actor with Peter Bowles who played her wealthy would-be suitor in To The Manor Born. Photo: AAP

“The family is grateful for the care and support she received throughout her treatments, and ask that their privacy be respected at this time.”

Born on April 2, 1940, Dame Penelope spent her early years as a young child in Clapham, south London. She was sent to boarding school in the coastal town of Seaford, East Sussex, aged six.

It was as a schoolgirl that she discovered a love of performing. She went on to study at London’s Webber Douglas Academy Of Dramatic Art, having reportedly been rejected from the Central School Of Speech And Drama for being too tall at around 178 centimetres.

Dame Penelope joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early 1960s, and in 1975, landed her big TV break in well-loved BBC sitcom The Good Life, as Margo Leadbetter, alongside co-star Felicity Kendal.

Across four series and 30 episodes, Leadbetter was peeved by her friendly, yet lower class neighbours in Surbiton, Barbara (Kendal) and Tom Good (Richard Briers), often leaving her husband Jerry (Paul Eddington) to apologise.

Dame Penelope won a Bafta in 1977 for her role in the series, which eventually saw her character revealed to have a heart of gold.

In the first episode, she was heard but not seen, but her presence increased as the show went on.

Another hit, To The Manor Born, in which she played the widowed aristocrat Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, followed soon after, and Dame Penelope also put her recognisable voice to good use as the narrator for children’s show Teletubbies and in adverts for everything from Pimm’s to Parker Pens.

In To The Manor Born, fforbes-Hamilton is forced to sell her vast country estate, Grantleigh Manor, after the death of her husband.

She moves into the estate’s modest lodge house but manages to keep her butler and Rolls-Royce.

From the lodge she can keep an eye on new owner and nouveau riche supermarket millionaire Richard DeVere, played by Peter Bowles.

Penelope Keith shares a laugh with then Prince Charles. Photo: AAP

The star also appeared in sitcoms Executive Stress, No Job For A Lady and Next Of Kin, and won a Bafta for a TV adaptation of The Norman Conquests, in a role she reprised after a run on stage.

In recent years, she returned to the theatre, taking on roles such as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit and Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest.

She was also involved in several charities, including the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, becoming president after the death of Sir Laurence Olivier in 1989. She also worked with prison organisation KeepOut and the National Memorial Arboretum.

Her contribution to the arts and charity was recognised with a damehood in the 2014 New Year Honours list, and while she would never insist on being addressed as Dame Penelope, she once admitted with a laugh that “it’s lovely when people do”.

In her later years she was “firmly rooted in the country”, living in Surrey with her husband, former police officer Rodney Timson, and their two cats and two dogs.

The couple, who have two adopted sons, wed in 1978 after meeting at a Chichester theatre, where Dame Penelope was performing and Timson was on duty.

She said that the secret to a successful marriage is “home-made marmalade”.