Sherlock star devastated by death of his ‘brilliant’ sister
HOLLYWOOD star Benedict Cumberbatch, who rarely speaks about his private life, has revealed his devastation at the ‘horrible’ death of his sister, the artist Tracy Peacock.
It was not known that she was ill, let alone that she had passed away.
‘She died of cancer,’ discloses the 45year-old Sherlock actor, who’s currently starring as a cowboy in Netflix film The Power Of The Dog, as well as appearing in Spider-Man: No Way Home. ‘She’d been battling it for seven years.’
Tracy, who was known as ‘Tracks’, was the 62-year-old daughter of Cumberbatch’s actress mother, Wanda Ventham, from her first marriage to James Tabernacle. When Wanda married Cumberbatch’s father, Timothy Carlton, teenager Tracy stayed with her mother, so grew up with the future star.
The Harrow-educated actor, who went to Manchester University, says: ‘As the greatly awful Donald Rumsfeld said, “stuff happens”. It’s horrible.
‘She was nothing to do with this world. She was markedly different.
‘She was a brilliant fine artist but ended up doing a lot of restorative work on canvas and on frames and carpentry. But still kept her hand in and did her own work and made the most Christmas and celebratory cards of any kind of festival. She was very gifted.’
Tracy would often look after her baby brother, and once accidentally left him too long on a freezing rooftop after placing him there to calm him down. ‘She forgot about me,’ he recalled, affectionately. ‘I mean, it was funny. She was in the kitchen with her friends and she suddenly saw the snow falling through the window.’
Tracy spoke on her brother’s behalf following his 2012 split from his fashion designer girlfriend Anna Jones, explaining why he used to struggle to find potential suitors: ‘You would have to be a pretty smart cookie to keep up with him. I think that is why possibly he has trouble with girlfriends.’
Benedict has since married theatre director Sophie Hunter, with whom he has three children.
Tracy leaves behind a husband and a 34-year-old daughter, Emily.