THE actress who officially opened the Edwardian pub in York's Castle Museum has died, aged 82.

Barbara Kelly was best known nationally for her role as a panellist on the television show What's My Line? and appearing in comedies with her husband, Bernard Braden.

In the early 1960s, Mrs Kelly was invited by the then curator to open the museum's newest attraction.

The museum had transposed a real pub - the William IV - from Walmgate, York, to the museum.

As the William IV's first landlady was called Barbara Kelly, the curator thought it fitting the Edwardian pub should be opened by her famous namesake.

Mrs Kelly was born in Vancouver on October 5, 1924, married Mr Braden in 1942 and moved to Britain in 1949. She died from cancer on Sunday at a hospice in London.