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Who Was Jean Marsh? Exploring Life and Legacy of Doctor Who Alum Amid Her Death at 90
Emmy-winning British actress Jean Marsh has passed away at the age of 90.
Trigger Warning: Mention of death
Emmy-winning British actress Jean Marsh, the renowned star and co-creator of the classic period drama Upstairs, Downstairs, died on April 13th in her London home. She was 90.
The New York Times confirmed her passing, with friend and filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg attributing it to complications due to dementia.
Best remembered for her portrayal of Rose Buck, Marsh was a force behind the innovative show that originally aired between 1971 and 1975 in the UK and later enthralled American viewers on PBS.
The drama, which follows the interwoven lives of an elite family and their household servants in Edwardian London, was a phenomenon in popular culture and a precursor to such future successes as Downton Abbey.
Marsh co-developed the show alongside fellow actress Eileen Atkins and reprised her role in all 54 episodes of the original series. In 1975, she went on to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
She returned to her role as Rose when the show was revived for a new season in 2010, cementing herself even further as an icon of British television. Throughout its glorious run, Upstairs, Downstairs has bagged seven Emmys and also won a Peabody.
In addition to her typecast character role, Marsh's film, television, and theatrical career was abundant. She acted in Ron Howard's fantasy motion picture Willow, also starred in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy, and remained a regular feature in Doctor Who, for whom she made appearances between 1965 and 1989. Her last on-screen outing was a cameo in Disney's 2022 television series based on Willow.
Born in 1934, Jean Lyndsay Torren Marsh grew up in London, the daughter of working-class parents. "If you were very working class in those days, you weren’t going to think of a career in science... You either did a tap dance or you worked in Woolworth’s," Marsh told The Guardian in 1972.
In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Jean Marsh with the honor of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama.
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