Profile
Peggy Ashcroft
Actress
Female
Born
Dec 22, 1907
Hometown
Croydon
Died
Jun 14, 1991
Death Place
London
Other Names
Ashcroft, Edith M...
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.
Romance
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News + Updates
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The Deep Blue Sea Will Close Bfi London Film Festival Bleeding Cool NewsGoogle News - Aug 30, 2011
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'Paul Robeson' Tells Of Immense Talent, Activism Charlotte ObserverGoogle News - Aug 28, 2011
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The Observer's Critics Pick The Season's Highlights, From Degas To Depp, And ... The GuardianGoogle News - Aug 27, 2011
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Performance At Its Very Best Absolutearts.ComGoogle News - Aug 24, 2011
Timeline
Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Peggy Ashcroft.
CHILDHOOD
1907
Birth
Born on December 22, 1907.
TWENTIES
1929
21 Years Old
Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Surrey, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and 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 two years later, during which time the two had a brief affair.
1934
26 Years Old
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.
THIRTIES
1940
32 Years Old
She was married three times, firstly to Rupert Hart-Davis (between 1929 and 1933), secondly to Theodore Komisarjevsky (in 1934) and thirdly to Jeremy Hutchinson, whom she married in 1940 and divorced in 1965.
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FORTIES
1950
42 Years Old
When she first played Beatrice with him in 1950, Gielgud found her performance "a revelation - an impish, rather tactless girl with a curious resemblance to Bea Lillie," while a teenage Peter Hall observed in her "English containment and decency, contrasted with a wild passion."
1955
47 Years Old
She and Gielgud would later be acclaimed as Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, which they played together a number of times, including a London engagement and European tour for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1955 (she also played Cordelia to his King Lear during that tour).
FIFTIES
1963
55 Years Old
She stayed at the top of the British theatrical profession throughout her career, with some of the highlights Three Sisters (1937) in which she played Irina, 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.
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LATE ADULTHOOD
1974
66 Years Old
In the 1970s, she starred in Der Fußgänger (English title: The Pedestrian), the Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning film, which won the Best Foreign Language Foreign Film of 1974.
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1984
76 Years Old
Possibly her best known celluloid role was that of Mrs. Moore in David Lean's 1984 film A Passage to India — a role for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress among many other awards, including a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award.
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1986
78 Years Old
In May 1986 Ashcroft was awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University.
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Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Ashcroft.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.