TV sitcom star much in demand
Rosemary Leach Award-winning actress BORN DECEMBER 18, 1935 - DIED OCTOBER 21, 2017, AGED 81
OVER the course of 50 years Rosemary Leach appeared in numerous hit TV shows including The Jewel In The Crown, The Charmer, Life Begins At Forty and My Family, as well as a slew of films, the most notable being A Room With A View.
At the peak of her career in the 1980s she was in such demand that it became a running joke among Equity members that “If Rosemary Leach is out of work television must be in a bad way”.
And yet when Leach left Rada in 1955 such success was unthinkable.
She had hated every moment of the three years she spent at the academy alongside contemporaries including Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole. Her tutors held out little hope of her making it as an actress.
“I couldn’t seem to learn anything and only stayed out of obstinacy because my parents were paying and I didn’t want to admit defeat,” she once explained.
It was only after she graduated and started working for a children’s mobile theatre that everything clicked into place. “Working off the back of a lorry and moving around all the time, I suddenly learnt how to do it,” she said.
Born in the Shropshire village of Much Wenlock, her parents were both teachers and she attended Oswestry School. She had no plans to act until her older sister produced a magazine article about Rada.
But after shyness prevented her from facing the examiners during her audition performance, she never expected to get in. However, much to her surprise she was accepted and spent the next three years trying to hone her acting skills.
After a decade treading the boards in repertory theatre, she got her big break in 1965 playing the mistress of ruthless businessman John Wilder in ITV’s The Power Game. The series came to be seen as a British precursor to Dallas and from there she starred in the sitcom No, That’s Me Over Here! with Ronnie Corbett, before side-stepping into film playing David Essex’s mother in the 1973 movie That’ll Be The Day.
Leach received her first Bafta nomination for Best Supporting Actress for that role and garnered a second nod when she played the aristocratic Mrs Honeychurch in A Room With A View in 1985.
Her career slowed in the late 1970s but she made a successful comeback on stage, playing American scriptwriter Helene Hanff in 84 Charing Cross Road, which saw her win an Olivier Award in 1982. More recently she appeared as a longstanding cast member in BBC sitcom My Family.
Despite her success Leach did have some regrets about her career.
“I regret that I didn’t do much Shakespeare,” she said. “I think it would have helped me a good deal if I’d done more classical stuff.
“I think television got in the way. People looked at you and thought you couldn’t do it in the theatre. I was never asked to work for the RSC or the National Theatre but I’m as good as Judi Dench, I’m sure I am.”
She died in hospital after a short illness and is survived by her second husband, actor Colin Starkey.
Her first marriage to theatre director John Waugh ended in 1970 after eight years.