Dame Penelope Anne Constance Keith (née Hatfield; 2 April 1940 – 29 June 2026) was an English actress. Active in film, radio, stage and television, where she was also a presenter, Keith was primarily known for her roles in the British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born. She succeeded Laurence Olivier as president of the Actors' Benevolent Fund after his death in 1989 and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the arts and to charity.

Keith joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 and went on to win the 1976 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for the play Donkeys' Years. She became a household name in the UK playing Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life (1975–1978), winning the 1977 BAFTA TV Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance. In 1978, Keith won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for The Norman Conquests. She then starred as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To the Manor Born (1979–1981), a series that attracted audiences of more than 20 million.

Keith went on to star in another six sitcoms, including Executive Stress (1986–1988), No Job for a Lady (1990–1992) and Next of Kin (1995–1997). From 2000, she worked in the theatre, with roles including Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit (2004) and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (2007). Starting in 2014, she presented several successful series of documentaries about English villages and this genteel role continued until her final year with the series Saving Country Houses.

Penelope Anne Constance Hatfield was born on 2 April 1940 in Sutton, Surrey. Her father, an army officer who was a major by the end of the Second World War, left her mother, Connie, when Keith was a baby; she spent her early years in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, and Clapham, south London. Her great-uncle, John Gurney Nutting, was a partner in the coachbuilding firm J Gurney Nutting & Co Limited, and Keith recalled sitting in the Prince of Wales's car.

Although not a Roman Catholic, at the age of six she was sent to a Catholic convent boarding school run by French nuns in Seaford, East Sussex, with Judy Cornwell. Here she became interested in acting, and she frequently went to matinées in the West End with her mother. When she was eight, her mother remarried and she adopted her stepfather's surname, Keith. Although she did not get on with her stepfather, her mother was a "rock of love" to her. She was rejected by the Central School of Speech and Drama on the grounds that, at 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m), she was too tall. However, she was then accepted at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and spent two years there while working at the Hyde Park Hotel in the evenings.

She began her career working in repertory theatre around Britain, including Lincoln, Manchester, and Salisbury. Her earliest appearances were in The Tunnel of Love, Gigi, and Flowering Cherry. In 1963, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and acted with them in Stratford and at the Aldwych Theatre in London.

Keith began her television career with appearances in programmes such as The Army Game, Dixon of Dock Green, Wild, Wild Women and The Avengers. In the early 1970s, she featured in The Morecambe & Wise Show, Ghost Story and The Pallisers. Her film work during this period included roles in Every Home Should Have One, Take A Girl Like You, Rentadick and Penny Gold. In 1967, she had a minor part in Carry On Doctor, although her scene was removed from the final cut. She also appeared in an uncredited role as a nurse in A Touch of Love (1969).

Her best-known theatre appearance came in 1974, when she played Sarah in The Norman Conquests, alongside Felicity Kendal, her co-star in The Good Life.