| Jean Marsh | ||||||
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| Birth name | Jean Lyndsay Torren Marsh | |||||
| Born | 1 July 1934 Stoke Newington, London, England |
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| Spouse(s) | Jon Pertwee (1955-60) | |||||
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Jean Lyndsay Torren Marsh (born 1 July 1934) is a Golden Globe-nominated English actress and writer, who is best known for co-creating the British period drama Upstairs, Downstairs with Eileen Atkins. She also portrayed house parlourmaid Rose Buck in the same series. Marsh and Atkins also co-created the 1991 television series The House of Eliott. Marsh has had several film appearances, including the fantasy films Return to Oz (1985) and Willow (1988) in which she plays similar characters of an evil Princess and an evil Queen. Marsh also made many appearances on British and American television programmes in the 1950s and 1960s, including The Twilight Zone (in a memorable episode in which she played a prisoner's robotic companion) and UFO. In the early '70s, she hosted the short-lived International Animation Festival on PBS. She also had a role as the office spy, Roz in the failed television series based on the movie of the same name, 9 to 5. She was once married to Jon Pertwee, the third actor to play the character of Doctor on the television series Doctor Who. Marsh herself appeared three times in the series, both before and after Pertwee's era, playing different characters, including the First Doctor's companion Sara Kingdom. Her part of Morgaine in the serial Battlefield is similar to her roles in the above-mentioned fantasy films. In 2000 Marsh had a starring role in the CBBC drama The Ghost Hunter, as the evil Mrs Croker. The Ghost Hunter ran for three series from 2000–2002. Marsh also made an appearance in the Blue Peter Quest in 2003 as the villain, Stryker. As of October 2007, Marsh was again playing the part of a maidservant, this time playing the housekeeper Bertha on the London West End stage in a revival of Boeing Boeing at the Comedy Theatre. Marsh lives in Boxford, Berkshire.
