Jean Marsh got her start on the screen in the 1950s but left an unforgettable mark on a generation through Willow and Return to Oz.
Jean Marsh, who played Bavmorda, the evil queen in 1988’s Willow, and the head-swapping Mombi in 1985’s Return to Oz, has passed away.
Through her work in both Willow and Return to Oz, Jean Marsh left a genuine mark on young viewers, playing a biting antagonist that embodies the evil spirit which presses down on our heroes. Yet, her brief appearance via archival footage for the short-lived Willow series was a most welcome tribute. She would even earn a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for Willow. And that she could stand out in Return to Oz – a movie crammed with nightmarish images – really says something.
Other notable big screen roles for Jean Marsh include 1980’s The Changeling, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972), horror film Dark Places (1973), and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s epic Cleopatra (1963).
While most of us here may remember Jean Marsh for her work in film, she was predominantly featured on the small screen. After getting her start as early as the 1950s via one-offs on shows like British anthology series ITV Television Playhouse and The Twilight Zone, she would land the Ian Hendry vehicle The Informer. However, most of those episodes are considered lost, not unlike some of the early seasons of Doctor Who. Speaking of which, Marsh would play Sara Kingdom, a companion of the First Doctor on the serial The Daleks’ Master Plan. Interestingly, her only husband would be Third Doctor Jon Pertwee.
But Jean Marsh’s greatest success in television came with Upstairs, Downstairs, a British drama series which was actually co-created by Marsh. On this endeavor, Jean Marsh sought to break out from the roles she was being lumped into, saying, “Our backgrounds were very ‘downstairs,’ and we always thought, ‘Why don’t people write about servants?’ I was bored with playing upper-middle-class women, and furious on behalf of my class that people cast me ‘upstairs’ because I have good bone structure. As if good bone structure was exclusive to upstairs people!”
What are your memories of watching Jean Marsh as a child? Tell us your favorite performance of hers and leave your condolences in the comments section below.
