Cinema star who didn't enjoy fame passes away.

A STAR of British cinema who was born in the North East has died aged 76.

Screen siren Elizabeth Shipp, who used the stage name June Mitchell, was born in Sunderland, the daughter of bus driver Charles Thornton and Catherine McAloon from Consett.

She made her cinema debut in 1951, alongside her sister Christine Norden, in the army comedy Reluctant Heroes - which became the top grossing British film of 1952.

Her first boyfriend, Hammer film producer Michael Carrera, cast her as a secretary in Never Look Back, starring Rosamund John, and she went on to appear alongside stars including Kay Kendall, Zachary Scott Richard Todd.

She had her first taste of fame shortly afterwards, when she was painted by Royal artist Sir Gerald Kelly and the portrait, Miss J, went on to hang in the Royal Academy.

But the painting went missing and in her later years, Elizabeth desperately tried to track down the picture, which went missing after Sir Gerald''s death in 1972. It has never been traced.

She was married to photographer and company director James Shipp and they had sons Jason and Adam before divorcing in 1980.

However, she did not enjoy her fame and by the time of her sister's funeral in 1988 she was living a reclusive life in Surbiton and was working as a bakery assistant.

Royal biographer Michael Thornton, a family friend, said: "She was a lovely person, but she was never really hung up on show business. In later years, she preferred to use the name Elizabeth, instead of June, because she felt it stood for her private family life, rather than her show business career, which she had never much enjoyed."

She died at Kingston Hospital, Surrey, from atherosclerosis, an arterial and circulatory disease.