Coronation Street star Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth) and Eastenders veteran Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler) are among the celebrities in today's star-studded Birthday Honours List.
And as expected there is a knighthood for the award-winning actor Michael Caine, who told this year's Bafta awards ceremony he never felt he belonged in his own country.
The list - which includes no new life peers - sees leading figures from the worlds of sport, business, arts and the media rub shoulders with "ordinary people doing ordinary jobs" in British life.
Mr Paddy Ashdown heads the political awards. The former leader of the Liberal Democrats becomes a KBE.
And there is a controversial award of a knighthood - Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) - to Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative Party Treasurer, whose recent peerage was granted, despite objections from Labour MPs, on condition that he resign as Belize's ambassador to the UN before taking his seat in the House of Lords.
Mr Ashcroft's latest award appears in the Commonwealth Honours List "on the advice of Her Majesty's Belize Ministers" - for public service to the community and country - meaning that the British government had no say in the matter.
Mr Eddie George, governor of the Bank of England, becomes a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).
Among the 40 per cent of women recipients in the 971 strong list are the author Beryl Bainbridge who becomes a dame (DBE), the singer Lulu who is made an OBE, television presenter Carol Vorderman, who becomes an MBE, and actress Sian Philips - recently described as "60 something, going on about 38 and still a vision of Welsh loveliness" - who becomes a CBE.
The new CBEs include television presenter Michael Parkinson and champion jockey-turned author Dick Francis.
Stars of yesteryear also feature in the list, including Lonnie Donegan (MBE) and former Blackpool footballer Jimmy Armfield (OBE), who was capped for England 43 times between 1952 and 1971.
Golfer Paul Lawrie becomes an MBE, as does Jeremy Guscott the former England rugby star.
The best selling author of the Harry Potter books, Joanne Rowling, is among the new OBEs and Northern Ireland's Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters becomes a Dame.
The Shakespearean actress Josette Simon becomes an OBE as does Oscar winning director Sam Mendes.
The list also reflects the government's priority policy areas, with education, health and law and order well represented.
The new CBEs include Mr David Veness, Assistant Commissioner, Special Branch (antiterrorist) Operations at New Scotland Yard, and Mr John Abbott of the National Criminal Intelligence Service.