actress Pat Kirkwood, star of stage and screen since the Thirties, has died at the age of 86.

Her death was announced yesterday by author and royal biographer Michael Thornton, a family friend.

Miss Kirkwood, who lived at West Burton, near Leyburn, North Yorkshire, for ten years, played lead roles in musicals written by Noel Coward, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein in a career spanning 60 years.

The late critic Kenneth Tynan hailed her legs as the eighth wonder of the world, but it was her links with Prince Philip that kept her in the public eye in recent years.

The pair were introduced backstage at the London Hippodrome in October 1948 by her boyfriend, the society photographer, Baron.

Miss Kirkwood and Prince Philip were seen dancing together in the Milroy nightclub later that night.

Miss Kirkwood admitted that they breakfasted at dawn on scrambled eggs but has always denied a romantic liaison.

The story was publicised again in 1996 when a biography of the Queen was written.

At the time, Miss Kirkwood was living in West Burton and she recalled: "When the rumours began again, I was horrified.

"We were living in a very religious Yorkshire village, and it was really terrible.

"I used to go to the Post Office and, if there was anybody there, they'd glare at me.

"I never left the Post Office or the butchers without someone insulting me.

"One woman said, 'Oh, they're letting anyone into West Burton these days, aren't they'?!"

Born in Pendleton, Manchester, in 1921, Miss Kirkwood was the daughter of a Scottish shipping clerk.

An appearance in a talent contest on the Isle of Man led to an audition with the BBC in Manchester, and she made her professional debut, aged 14, as a singer on BBC Radio's The Children's Hour.

A year later, she made her first stage appearance, and in 1937, won the lead in her first film, Save a Little Sunshine.

National critics hailed her as "Britain's first wartime star" after the success of the revue Black Velvet at London Hippodrome in November 1939.

By 1945, she had been signed to Hollywood studio MGM, but the flop of her first film there - No Leave, No Love - led to a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide.

She spent eight months recovering and made a triumphant return to Britain in 1947 with Starlight Roof at the London Hippodrome.

Noel Coward wrote the West End musical Ace Of Clubs especially for her in 1950 and, in 1954, she became the first female star to have her own one-hour series on British television.

She married four times, to showbusiness executive Jack Lister, Greek ship-owner Spiro de Spero Gabriele, actor, playwright and composer Hubert Gregg, and retired lawyer Peter Knight.

During the last years of her life, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.

She died on Christmas Day at Kitwood House nursing home in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, with Mr Knight by her side.