Obituary: Miriam Karlin, actress

For an actress who had a distinguished stage career, Miriam Karlin was forever associated with one line she delivered in a 1960s BBCTV sitcom, The Rag Trade. At the slightest suggestion of management interference, Karlin would screech at the top of her voice: "Everybody out!" So would start a strike in the factory and Karlin would dance a verbal jig round the manager - the ever-bemused Peter Jones.

The Rag Trade made Karlin a star and was one of the first comedies to deal with industrial problems. Karlin's character, Paddy, was abrasive, confrontational and difficult, but the show gained huge audiences. To the unruly character Karlin brought a vulnerable and humane side, which endeared Paddy to the public and for all her tantrums Karlin became one of the most popular actresses on television in the 1960s.

The Rag Trade originally starred, alongside Karlin, Reg Varney, Sheila Hancock and Barbara Windsor. It was turned into a stage play, but did not work and Karlin never seemed happy with the stage transfer. It was also revived, without great success, in 1977 for London Weekend Television, with Jones and Karlin reprising their original roles.

Miriam Samuels (she later changed her name to Karlin and was always Mim to her friends) was the daughter of a barrister and attended South Hampstead High School and London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Her first job was with Ensa, entertaining the troops, and she appeared in London in 1951 in Women of Twilight, which she also did on Broadway. That was followed by plays at the Lyric Hammersmith and then back to the west end in The Diary of Ann Frank in 1956. Karlin then joined the adventurous Joan Littlewood company in the East End and was in the original production of Lionel Bart's Fings Ain't Wot They Used T' Be, in which she played the loveable tart Lilly Smith. After the first night, Nol Coward wrote, somewhat acerbically, in his diary that it was "a smash hit saved by a true performance by Miriam Karlin".

It was then that Karlin found fame in The Rag Trade. The nature of the series - which was only screened from 1961-63 - reflected the unrest in industry, while the fact that most of the stars were female added an extra cache. Karlin's blowing of her whistle and shouting her famous catchphrase was central to the series.

In 1967, Karlin landed the prize part of Goldie in the first production of Fiddler on the Roof in London. She played the wife of Tevye, played by Topol, who became an international star as a result of the show.

Karlin was always keen to demonstrate that she was more than a sitcom actress. In 1981, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Jacobean drama The Witch of Edmonton and a fondly remembered Mistress Quickly in Henry IV.In the 1990s, Karlin was seen in television dramas as So Haunt Me, Casualty, Holby City, The Bill, Doctors and Dalziel and Pascoe.

In Scotland Karlin was well known for many of the many tours she was in - notably Helen Hanff in 84 Charing Cross Road. She delivered a sparkling Goldie for Scottish Opera when it mounted - in Peter Ebert's 1979 production - Fiddler on the Roof. Karlin was seen at the Tron, Glasgow in Irina Brown's Lavockin S in 1976 and brought to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1973 her one-woman show, Diary of a Madame, which Cameron Macintosh transferred to the West End in London. The show was based on the letters of the sister-in-law of Louis X1V.

Karlin acted as a delightful anchor for STV's coverage of the Edinburgh Festival in 1978. It went out from STV's studios in what used to be the Gateway Theatre in Leith Walk and Karlin proved a most enthusiastic festival observer.

Karlin remained a passionate campaigner all her life. Some of her mother's relations had been gassed at Auschwitz, and she was a life-long member of the Anti-Nazi League, campaigned for nuclear disarmament, and was a stridently outspoken council member of Equity.

As recently as 2008, despite increasing ill-health and the onslaught of cancer, Karlin attended a meeting for a vote of no confidence in the proposed Arts Council England cuts. Her campaigning zeal was the backbone of Karlin's life.

Although she never married, she was a passionate lover of art and built up a fine collection of the work by the stage designer Erte.