Jean Marsh

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

Jean Marsh
Birth date:	1 July 1934
Work in the DWU
Main roles:	Sara Kingdom
Main jobs:	Actor
Stories:	See Credits Section
Main time period active:	1965-66, 1989, 2007-16
Career highlights
Notable non-DWU work:	Upstairs, Downstairs, The Saint, Return to Oz, Willow, Upstairs Downstairs
IMDb profile

Jean Marsh, OBE (born on 1 July 1934 in Stoke Newington, London) played Sara Kingdom in the Doctor Who story The Daleks' Master Plan (a role she has reprised subsequently in Big Finish's audio adventures). Prior to that story, she had appeared as Joanna, Richard the Lionheart's sister, in The Crusade. She later played Morgaine in Battlefield. She also voiced Maria Applewhite in The Wishing Beast and made an uncredited cameo as a party guest in the 50th anniversary An Adventure in Space and Time.

She was also considered for the roles of Tanha in Snakedance (TCH 36) and Queen Katryca in The Mysterious Planet. (TCH 42)

Career

Outside her appearances on Doctor Who, she is best known for creating the television series Upstairs, Downstairs (with Dame Eileen Atkins) and for portraying maid Rose Buck in that series. She and Atkins also co-created the 1991 television series The House of Eliott.

Marsh has made many 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. Around the same time as her appearance as Morgaine in "Battlefield," she also played Morgana in an American television adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, starring The Cosby Show's Keshia Knight Pullam. She also played Roz in the original version of the 9 to 5 television series, based on the 1980 comedy film, and had a small but significant role in the Alfred Hitchcock film Frenzy.

Marsh made many appearances on British and American television programs in the 1950s and 1960s, including The Twilight Zone (she played an android in the iconic anthology's first season in 1959), The Third Man (opposite future Saint and James Bond star Roger Moore), and UFO.

One favourite anecdote of her time playing Sara Kingdom is of how she used the space pack which was part of her costume to store her sandwiches, as related in a Doctor Who anniversary publication produced by Radio Times in 1983.

Ill-health

In the 2010s she was also involved in a revival/remake of Upstairs, Downstairs which at one point included Alex Kingston in the cast, though Marsh's involvement was curtailed after she suffered a minor stroke. She had since recovered and carried on working, including resuming her involvement with Doctor Who audios for Big Finish.

Personal life

She was once married to Jon Pertwee, the actor who played the Third Doctor on Doctor Who.

Credits

As Sara Kingdom

Television

Doctor Who

• The Daleks' Master Plan

Audio

Special Releases

• The Five Companions
• The Light at the End

The Lost Stories

• The Destroyers

The Early Adventures

• An Ordinary Life
• The Sontarans

The Companion Chronicles

• Home Truths
• The Drowned World
• The Guardian of the Solar System
• The Anachronauts

Other Roles

Television

Doctor Who

• The Crusade - Princess Joanna
• Battlefield - Morgaine

Other

• An Adventure in Space and Time - Party Guest

Audio

Doctor Who Main Range

• The Wishing Beast - Maria Applewhite

Audiobook Readings

Target Novelisations

• Daleks: Mission to the Unknown (with Peter Purves)
• Daleks: The Mutation of Time (with Peter Purves)

Documentary

• Girls! Girls! Girls!
• Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty

External links

• Jean Marsh at the Internet Movie Database