Peggy Ashcroft

Peggy Ashcroft

Born: December 22, 1907
Died: June 14, 1991
in Croydon, Surrey, England, UK
​Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, DBE, (22 December 1907 - 14 June 1991) known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than sixty years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an early age to become an actress, despite parental opposition.

Movies for Peggy Ashcroft...

She's Been Away
Title: She's Been Away
Character: Lillian Huckle
Released: July 9, 1989
Type: Movie
A woman who has been institutionalized for 60 years for the "crime" of not conforming to the 1920s image of what a proper young woman should be (in other words, she did what she wanted and didn't care what anyone else thought about it) is finally released to the custody of her family, consisting of her grand-nephew and his family. At first she keeps a self-imposed distance from the relatives, but she soon finds herself coming around to her nephew's wife, a free spirit who is under the thumb of her cold and controlling husband
bee
The Heat of the Day
Title: The Heat of the Day
Character: Nettie
Released: June 9, 1989
Type: Movie
In World War II England, a woman is approached by a man claiming to work as an intelligence agent who has found out her lover is a spy. He promises to not arrest him if she'll have a relationship with him.
bee
Madame Sousatzka
Title: Madame Sousatzka
Character: Lady Emily
Released: October 14, 1988
Type: Movie
In London, eccentric piano instructor Madame Sousatzka takes on a new prize protégé, Manek, a teenage Bengali immigrant who displays incredible talent. Manek forms a close bond with his teacher, but soon discovers that she expects her pupils to become disciplined in all areas of life, and not just behind the piano
bee
Title: A Perfect Spy
Character: Miss Dubber
Released: November 4, 1987
Type: TV
The life of British MI6 spy Magnus Pym, from his school days to his mysterious disappearance.
bee
When the Wind Blows
Title: When the Wind Blows
Character: Hilda Bloggs (voice)
Released: October 24, 1986
Type: Movie
With the help of government-issued pamphlets, an elderly British couple build a shelter and prepare for an impending nuclear attack, unaware that times and the nature of war have changed from their romantic memories of World War II.
bee
Murder by the Book
Title: Murder by the Book
Character: Agatha Christie
Released: January 1, 1986
Type: Movie
Agatha Christie’s agents propose that it’s time for her to publish the manuscript she wrote thirty-five years earlier, a novel in which she finally kills off her most famous creation. And it’s not an entirely sad occasion. “That wretched little man,” she says. “He’s always been so much trouble. How is it Miss Marple has never upset me at all, not ever?” That night, who should appear at her doorstep but the wretched little man himself, Hercule Poirot? The great fictional detective and his creator proceed to play a very Christie-like game of cat and mouse for the manuscript – and for their own lives.
bee
The Wind and the Bomb
Title: The Wind and the Bomb
Released: January 1, 1986
Type: Movie
The making-of When the Wind Blows, featuring interviews with producer John Coates, director Jimmy T. Murakami and writer Raymond Briggs
bee
A Passage to India
Title: A Passage to India
Character: Mrs. Moore
Released: December 14, 1984
Type: Movie
Set during the period of growing influence of the Indian independence movement in the British Raj, the story begins with the arrival in India of a British woman, Miss Adela Quested, who is joining her fiancé, a city magistrate named Ronny Heaslop. She and Ronny's mother, Mrs. Moore, befriend an Indian doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed.
bee
Title: Playing Shakespeare
Released: July 29, 1984
Type: TV
John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.
bee
Title: Six Centuries of Verse
Character: Herself - Reader
Released: May 2, 1984
Type: TV
Sir John Gielgud is joined by an outstanding repertory of actors in this pioneering, imaginative series demonstrating the immense variety and emotional impact of English-language poetry, from the fourteenth century to the contemporary era.
bee
Title: The Jewel in the Crown
Character: Barbie Batchelor
Released: January 9, 1984
Type: TV
A sweeping drama about the ruling and ruled classes of World War II India, the story begins with an unjust arrest for rape. The consequences of this arrest echo throughout the series with questions of identity and personal responsibility being explored against a background of war and personal intrigue.
bee
Little Eyolf
Title: Little Eyolf
Character: The Rat Wife
Released: July 19, 1982
Type: Movie
Alfred Allmers has spent his whole life writing a book on "responsibility," a luxury he can afford as a result of his marriage to the wealthy and beautiful Rita. However, much to Rita's annoyance, his attention isn't always undivided toward her, as Alfred shifts his focus between his book, their son Eyolf, and his half-sister Asta. As Allmers slowly feels trapped in an unfulfilling marriage, emotions and a painful past threaten to boil over into a terrible finale.
bee
Cream in My Coffee
Title: Cream in My Coffee
Character: Jean Wilsher
Released: November 2, 1980
Type: Movie
Past and present intertwine: An elderly couple returns to the hotel where they became close when they were young and flashbacks to the earlier visit reveal the origins of both their pleasures and problems. Somewhere between the past and the present, Dennis Potter attempted to find "the shape of a life, of two lives..."
bee
Caught on a Train
Title: Caught on a Train
Character: Frau Messner
Released: October 31, 1980
Type: Movie
British playwright Stephen Poliakoff's comical teleplay investigates Europe's changing social landscape via three strangers who meet on a train. Peter (Michael Kitchen), an English businessman on an overnight trip through Europe, shares a compartment with a beautiful American woman, Lorraine (Wendy Raebeck). But Peter's hope for romance is soon dampened by Lorraine's xenophobia and the arrival of a haughty Viennese aristocrat (Peggy Ashcroft).
bee
Title: Edward and Mrs Simpson
Character: Queen Mary
Released: November 8, 1978
Type: TV
While still the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII meets the married American socialite, Wallis Simpson. Their relationship causes furor in the palace and in parliament, especially when King George V dies, Mrs. Simpson gets divorced, and King Edward announces his intention to marry her.
bee
Edward & Mrs. Simpson
Title: Edward & Mrs. Simpson
Character: Queen Mary
Released: November 6, 1978
Type: Movie
While still the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII meets the married American socialite, Wallis Simpson. Their relationship causes furor in the palace and in parliament, especially when King George V dies, Mrs. Simpson gets divorced, and King Edward announces his intentions to marry her.
bee
Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures
Title: Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures
Character: Lady Gee
Released: September 1, 1978
Type: Movie
This lighthearted romp through Royal India presents a world of Maharajas, palaces, imperiled art objects, and the foreign collectors who will stop at nothing to possess them. Peggy Ashcroft and Larry Pine star as two rapacious art collectors who come to the decaying Art Deco palace of a young Maharaja (Victor Banerjee) to examine a legendary collection of Indian miniature paintings. While vying with each other to get the pictures away from the royal couple—nicknamed Georgie and Bonnie as children by their Scottish governess—they must also divine the true motives of the Indian curator of the collection (Saeed Jaffrey), who, in league with the Maharaja’s beautiful sister (Aparna Sen), may be working against them. Amidst the backdrop of lavish tourist entertainments, Christmas parties, fireworks, and even an English ghost, a desperate game of palace intrigue will determine the ultimate resting place of the priceless paintings.
bee
Joseph Andrews
Title: Joseph Andrews
Character: Lady Tattle
Released: March 9, 1977
Type: Movie
Lady Booby alias 'Belle', the lively wife of the fat landed squire Sir Thomas Booby, has a lusty eye on the attractive, intelligent villager Joseph Andrews, a Latin pupil and protégé of parson Adams, and makes him their footman. Joseph's heart belongs to a country girl, foundling Fanny Goodwill, but his masters take him on a fashionable trip to Bath, where the spoiled society comes mainly to see and be seen, but drowns in the famous Roman baths. When the all but grieving lady finds Joseph's Christian virtue and true love resist her lusting passes just as well as the many ladies who fancy her footman, she fires the boy. He's found and nursed by an innkeeper's maid, which stirs lusts there, again besides his honorable conduct, but is found by the good parson.
bee
The Pedestrian
Title: The Pedestrian
Character: Lady Gray
Released: September 5, 1973
Type: Movie
When a German businessman causes a car accident with deadly consequences, the papers start digging into his past to find scandals. What they find causes him to reevaluate his own past during WW2 when he was in Greece.
bee
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Title: Sunday Bloody Sunday
Character: Mrs. Greville
Released: July 1, 1971
Type: Movie
Recently divorced career woman Alex Greville begins a romantic relationship with glamorous mod artist Bob Elkin, fully aware that he's also intimately involved with middle-aged doctor Daniel Hirsh. For both Alex and Daniel, the younger man represents a break with their repressive pasts, and though both know that Bob is seeing both of them, neither is willing to let go of the youth and vitality he brings to their otherwise stable lives.
bee
Title: Great Performances
Character: Self
Released: January 28, 1971
Type: TV
The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.
bee
3 Into 2 Won't Go
Title: 3 Into 2 Won't Go
Character: Belle
Released: July 2, 1969
Type: Movie
Steve Howard, a British sales executive living in Manchester, England, begins an affair with a young hitchhiker, Elle Patterson, to emotionally get away from his marriage to his wife Francis. But when Elle moves into a room in Steve and Francis's house, he must keep the true nature of his relationship with Elle under wraps at all costs.
bee
Secret Ceremony
Title: Secret Ceremony
Character: Hannah
Released: October 23, 1968
Type: Movie
A penniless woman meets a strange girl who insists she is her long-lost mother and becomes enmeshed in a web of deception, and perhaps madness.
bee
Tell Me Lies
Title: Tell Me Lies
Released: February 2, 1968
Type: Movie
Adapted and directed by Peter Brook from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘production-in-progress US’, this long-unseen agitprop drama-doc – shot in London in 1967 and released only briefly in the UK and New York at the height of the Vietnam War – remains both thought-provoking and disturbing. A theatrical and cinematic social comment on US intervention in Vietnam, Brook’s film also reveals a 1960s London where art, theatre and political protest actively collude and where a young Glenda Jackson and RSC icons such as Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Scofield feature prominently on the front line. Multi-layered scenarios staged by Brook combine with newsreel footage, demonstrations, satirical songs and skits to illustrate the intensity of anti-war opinion within London’s artistic and intellectual community.
bee
October Revolution
Title: October Revolution
Character: Self (narrator)
Released: October 11, 1967
Type: Movie
French director Frederic Rossif presents this historical documentary that coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Stock footage from both World Wars are included with 30 minutes of new scenes filmed especially for the project. The historical timeline is traced from the time Czar Nicholas II is crowned. The emergence of Lenin, his death in 1924, and the later contributions of Trotsky and Stalin give the viewer a sense of death, betrayal, and ideological devotion to the communist agenda. Rossif effectively uses scenes from the landmark 1929 film The Man With A Movie Camera by celebrated director Dziga Vertov. Rossif researched the film archives from several countries in his meticulous gathering of materials for this timely historical feature.
bee
Title: The Wars of the Roses
Character: Queen Margaret
Released: January 6, 1966
Type: TV
The Wars of the Roses was a 1963 theatrical adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI & Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster & the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. The plays were adapted by John Barton, and directed by Barton himself & Peter Hall at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The plays were heavily politicized, with Barton and Hall allowing numerous contemporaneous events of the early 1960s to inform their adaptation. The production was a huge critical & commercial success, and is generally regarded as revitalizing the reputation of the Henry VI plays in the modern theatre. Many critics feel The Wars of the Roses set a standard for future productions of the tetralogy which has yet to be surpassed. The 1965 broadcast was so successful that they were shown again, as 11 episodes, each 50 minutes long, in 1966.
bee
The Wars of the Roses
Title: The Wars of the Roses
Character: Queen Margaret
Released: April 8, 1965
Type: Movie
A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. It was based on the 1963 theatre adaptation by John Barton, and directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
bee
Britain Welcomes the President of India
Title: Britain Welcomes the President of India
Released: June 12, 1963
Type: Movie
An account of the state visit to Britain by the President of India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, in June 1963. In London he accompanied the Queen on a State drive, visited the Commonwealth Institute, attended a Guildhall luncheon and visited the country.
bee
The Cherry Orchard
Title: The Cherry Orchard
Character: Madame Ranevsky
Released: April 17, 1962
Type: Movie
Madame Ranevsky and her daughter Anya return home from Paris to find that their beloved family estate and cherry orchard are to be auctioned off to pay debts. Lopahin, a former serf on the estate who is now a wealthy landowner, proposes razing the home and cherry orchard and dividing the estate into plots that could be leased at great profit. The family, however, continues to hold out hope that their beloved home can somehow be saved from destruction.
bee
Terminus
Title: Terminus
Character: Mother (uncredited)
Released: December 1, 1961
Type: Movie
This fly on the wall-style documentary from 1961 won an Oscar for best documentary, and shows the changing patterns of human emotions during 24 hours in the life of Waterloo Station.
bee
The Nun's Story
Title: The Nun's Story
Character: Mother Mathilde
Released: June 18, 1959
Type: Movie
After leaving a wealthy Belgian family to become a nun, Sister Luke struggles with her devotion to her vows during crisis, disappointment, and World War II.
bee
Title: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Character: Margaret - Crofter's Wife (archive footage) (uncredited)
Released: October 2, 1955
Type: TV
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.
bee
We Serve
Title: We Serve
Released: June 29, 1942
Type: Movie
Training film for officers of the ATS, encouraging compassion and understanding for the young woman in their charge.
bee
Quiet Wedding
Title: Quiet Wedding
Character: Flower Lisle
Released: April 19, 1941
Type: Movie
A young couple become engaged, but enjoy a number of comedic aventures before their wedding day.
bee
Channel Incident
Title: Channel Incident
Character: The Woman
Released: April 28, 1940
Type: Movie
During the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940, a young woman takes her motorboat to join the flotilla to rescue soldiers and also to search for her husband, a British soldier who was fighting in France and who may be among the troops waiting to be rescued.
bee
Rhodes of Africa
Title: Rhodes of Africa
Character: Anna Carpenter
Released: June 30, 1936
Type: Movie
Rhodes of Africa is a 1936 British biographical film charting the life of Cecil Rhodes. It was directed by Berthold Viertel and starred Walter Huston, Oskar Homolka, Basil Sydney and Bernard Lee.
bee
The 39 Steps
Title: The 39 Steps
Character: The Crofter's Wife Margaret
Released: June 6, 1935
Type: Movie
Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.
bee
The Wandering Jew
Title: The Wandering Jew
Character: Olalla Quintana (Phase IV)
Released: November 15, 1933
Type: Movie
Old Jerusalem: Matathias, spiteful over his lover's illness, spits on Jesus along the road to Calvary, and is cursed to live endlessly until His return. The Crusades, 1150: Matathias, now an anonymous knight, competes for glory in combat and for the wife of a soldier. Palermo, 1290: Matteos Battadios witnesses the death of his young son, leading to conflict with his wife over whether to take comfort in Christianity. Seville, 1560: Dr Matteos Battadios dedicates himself to the treatment and comfort of the poor, but his life and work are endangered by the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition.
bee
Title: Caught on a Train
Character: Frau Messner
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: TV
Caught On A Train is a critically successful British television play written by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by Peter Duffell, based on an overnight train journey across Europe, and following the route of a journey Poliakoff had himself made from London to Vienna. It was originally shown on BBC1 on 31 October 1980. The play starred Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Michael Kitchen, with the main supporting cast featuring Wendy Raebeck and Michael Sheard, with a soundtrack by the jazz composer Mike Westbrook. The production won a BAFTA Television Award and other plaudits in 1980, and was re-shown by the BBC in 2001 and 2006. Having previously been available on VHS, the play was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide in 2004, with an audio commentary from Poliakoff and producer Kenith Trodd.