Entertainment
Upstairs, Downstairs star Nicola Pagett dies aged 75 from brain tumour
Upstairs, Downstairs star Nicola Pagett has died aged 75 from a brain tumour.
The actress died ‘suddenly of a brain tumour’ on March 3 after ‘stoically dealing with her illness’, The Guardian reported.
Pagett was best known for playing the spoiled daughter of Richard and Lady Marjorie, Elizabeth Bellamy, in the 1970s series Upstairs, Downstairs, which followed the lives of the masters and servants in a townhouse in Belgravia during the early 1900s.
In the Emmy and Bafta winning series, Pagett’s character made the mistake of marrying poet Lawrence Kirbridge, who had no interest in sex, and her resulting affair with his publisher resulted in a child.
Speaking about her most famous role, Pagett said: ‘There weren’t any stars really — that was the beauty of it. Everyone had an equal importance in the thing.
‘The product was more important than the people in it in those days. So, if it was a success, it was a success because everyone in it was good rather than because the actor in it was well known.’
Pagett left after the second series as she didn’t want to be known for just one role; in the show, Elizabeth moved to New York.
The star, who was born in Cairo in 1945, was also known for her role as Elizabeth Fanschawe in the critically acclaimed 1973 TV film Frankenstein: The True Story, played the titular part in the 1977 mini-series Anna Karenina, and starred opposite David Jason in A Bit Of A Do.
On the big screen, Pagett starred in films including There’s a Girl in My Soup, Operation: Daybreak and Mike Newell’s An Awfully Big Adventure, alongside Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant.
Oagett was also a regular fixture on the West End, and starred with Michael Gambon and Liv Ullmann in a 1985 revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times after being directed by the playwright two years earlier in The Trojan War Will Not Take Place.
Other plays included The Rehearsal and The Rules of the Game, while her final stage appearance came in the National Theatre in 1995 in a revival of Joe Orton’s black comedy What the Butler Saw with Richard Wilson and David Tennant.
Her autobiography, Diamonds Behind My Eyes, was published in 1997, and details her diagnosis of manic depression, which led to a period of increasingly erratic behaviour.
After seeing Tony Blair’s press secretary Alastair Campbell, she became obsessed with the man she called ‘The Stranger’ and began to send hundreds of love letters to him.
Under the delusion it was Campbell’s instruction, she falsely accused her then-husband of having an incestuous relationship with their 15-year-old daughter and feeding her heroin.
According to the Guardian, her recovery was ‘partial’, explaining: ‘Some days were beter than others.’
Pagett was married to Graham Swannell from 1975 until their divorce in 1997; they share a daughter, Eve.
She lived alone in south-west London with her two Persian cats.
Pagett is survived by Eve and her sister Angela.
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