Peggy Ashcroft

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Peggy Ashcroft
Birth name Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft
Born 22 December 1907(1907-12-22)
Croydon
Died 14 June 1991 (aged 83)
London, England
Spouse(s) Rupert Hart-Davis
(1929-1933)
Theodore Komisarjevsky (1934-?)
Jeremy Hutchinson
(1940-1965)

Dame Peggy Ashcroft DBE (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991) was an acclaimed Academy Award-winning English actress.

Contents

[edit] Career

Born Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Peggy Ashcroft attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. A prolific stage actress from a young age, she first gained notoriety playing Naemi in Jew Suss in 1929 and Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson's Othello in 1931. True stardom came in 1934 when she played Juliet in a legendary production of Romeo and Juliet at the New Theatre in which Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud alternated in the roles of Romeo and Mercutio. She stayed at the top of the British theatrical profession for the remainder of her career, with some of the highlights The Three Sisters (1937}, The Heiress (1949}, Antony and Cleopatra (1953), As You Like It and Cymbeline (as Imogen) (1957), The Taming of the Shrew (1960), and The War of the Roses, the Royal Shakespeare Company's massive landmark compendium of the three Henry VI plays and Richard III directed by Peter Hall for the RSC in 1963.

Her film and television appearances were rare but memorable. One of her earliest film roles was the minor part of the crofter's wife in the Robert Donat version of The Thirty-Nine Steps.

In 1937 she appeared in a thirty-minute excerpt of Twelfth Night on the BBC Television Service, alongside Greer Garson, the first known instance of a Shakespeare play being performed on television.

Possibly her best known celluloid role was that of Mrs Moore in the film A Passage to India — a role for which she won an Oscar in 1984 for Best Supporting Actress. To this day, Ashcroft remains the oldest person ever to win this award; she was 77 years old at the time. Although she did not appear in person at the telecast to accept the Oscar, Angela Lansbury accepted it on Ashcroft's behalf.

On television, 1984 saw Peggy Ashcroft appear in the role of Barbie Batchelor on the internationally acclaimed British mini-series The Jewel in the Crown, for which she won a BAFTA Best Television Actress award.

She was painted by Walter Sickert.

[edit] Life

Peggy Ashcroft was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1951, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1956.

She was thrice-married and divorced, with 2 children by her last husband, Jeremy Hutchinson, whom she married in 1940 and divorced in 1965. Her first husband (married 1929) was Rupert Hart-Davis, and her second husband was Theodore Komisarjevsky.

She reportedly had an affair with American actor and activist, Paul Robeson, during a production of Othello[citation needed].

She died in London, following a stroke, aged 83.

[edit] Selected Appearances

[edit] Film

[edit] Television

[edit] Stage

Awards
Preceded by
Linda Hunt
for The Year of Living Dangerously 		Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1984
for A Passage to India 		Succeeded by
Anjelica Huston
for Prizzi's Honor
Preceded by
Shirley MacLaine
for Terms of Endearment 		NYFCC Award for Best Actress
1984
for A Passage to India 		Succeeded by
Norma Aleandro
for The Official Story

[edit] External links

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