Jean Marsh, star and co-creator of ITV drama Upstairs, Downstairs, dies at 90 following dementia diagnosis
British actress Jean Marsh, co-creator and star of the 1970s drama series Upstairs, Downstairs, has died at the age of 90.
Marsh passed away on Sunday at her home in London due to complications from dementia.
Her death was confirmed by filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, a close friend of the actress.
The Emmy-winning star was best known for her role as Rose, the strict head parlour maid in the historical drama set in Edwardian England.
Upstairs, Downstairs captured the hearts of viewers decades before Downton Abbey was even conceived.
The show focused on the elegant Bellamy family and their servants who maintained their Belgravia townhouse according to precise Edwardian social standards.
Marsh deliberately chose the role of Rose, the household’s head parlor maid, describing her as “stern but good-hearted” with a Cockney accent.
The New York Times praised her performance in 1974, saying she played Rose with “the perfection of a young Mildred Dunnock.”
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The series ran from 1971 to 1975 in England and from 1974 to 1977 in the United States.
By the time the show ended its American run, it had won a Peabody Award and seven Emmys.
Marsh herself took home the 1975 Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series.
In 1989, 13 “lost episodes” that had never been shown on American television made their PBS debuts.
When asked about Britain’s fascination with the master-servant dynamic, Marsh told The Telegraph in 2010: “Because if you rose out of your class, you knew you had done well.”
The idea for Upstairs, Downstairs was born when Marsh and actress Eileen Atkins were house-sitting in the South of France for a wealthy friend.
“I’d love more of this,” Marsh announced poolside one day. Atkins replied, “Then write down the idea.”
Both women had personal connections to service work – Atkins’s father had worked as a butler.
In the early 1990s, Marsh and Atkins collaborated again on The House of Eliott, a drama about aspiring fashion designers in 1920s London.
They also worked together on the 2010-12 revival of Upstairs, Downstairs.
Beyond Upstairs, Downstairs, Marsh enjoyed a wide-ranging career on stage and screen.
She appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972) as a secretary who finds her boss strangled.
Her film roles also included playing an evil sorceress in Willow (1988) and an evil princess in Back to Oz (1985).
Marsh made early appearances on Dr. Who and her final television role came in 2015, in an episode of Grantchester where she played a cantankerous invalid who is found dead.
Jean Marsh was married to British actor Jon Pertwee from 1955 to 1960.
She later had long romantic relationships with actor Kenneth Haigh and filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg.