She was also known for her appearances in BBC comedy series The Fast Show and for narrating Channel 4 series Gogglebox, having made her name as the old-age pensioner in the spoof chat show host Mrs Merton.
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Her publicist Neil Reading said on Saturday: “Caroline Aherne has sadly passed away, after a fearless battle with cancer”.
The actress, who battled a number of health problems including eye cancer as a child, and later bladder cancer, died at her home in Timperley, Greater Manchester.
“She was a very, very amusing woman and she used this next song for a very, very, very, very brilliant sitcom in England called The Royle Family”.
Ralf Little, who played her brother Antony in the Royle Family, said: “Thing is, amidst all sadness Caroline would now say something grounded, incisive, and hilarious”.
“My heart is broken as I loved her so much”.
The creator of Gogglebox, Tania Alexander, has tweeted that she’s “beyond sad about the loss of my dear pal Caroline Aherne”.
The Mrs Merton Christmas Show won the best talk show Bafta in 1997 while The Royle Family took home the best sitcom award in 2000 and 2007.
He said Aherne had a “joy about her” and that despite her hard times “prized laughter above all else”.
She had that northern, working class, Irish immigrant humour.
Caroline was once a prolific smoker but said she had since given it up, saying the disease was not linked to her former habit.
Jenny Eclair wrote: “Poor dear Caroline Aherne, how terribly sad”.
The daughter of a railwayman and a school dinner lady, Aherne split with husband Peter Hook, guitarist with pop group New Order and house musician on the Mrs Merton Show, in April 1996.
But evidently at the end of her life, she chose to bow out alone, most likely so as not to give her family the heartache of seeing her go. Working at Piccadilly Radio as a receptionist, she began to develop one of her most famous creations, Mrs. Merton, as part of Chris Sievey’s Frank Sidebottom show on the station. She had a cameo playing my wife Sheila, who I serenaded with the Smiths’ classic Sheila Take a Bow.
Jeremy Clarkson said simply: ‘Caroline Aherne.
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He added later: “Sorry for silence – I just. don’t know what to say”. Caroline would always find peoples’ achilles heels, but her humour was never nasty.
