Nicola Pagett obituary

over 4 years in The guardian

Stage and screen actor best known for playing Elizabeth Bellamy in the 1970s TV series Upstairs, Downstairs
Nicola Pagett, who has died suddenly of a brain tumour aged 75, will not easily be forgotten by anyone who saw her on stage or screen over a career of 30 years. She was a glacial, beautiful presence in plays from Shaw to Pinter and she illuminated Upstairs, Downstairs on television in the early 1970s. She played Elizabeth Bellamy, the spoilt and self-absorbed daughter of the upscale Belgravia household in Eaton Square, who makes the mistake of marrying a poet with no interest in the physical side of love. She has an affair with his publisher and conceives a child. Other amorous adventures follow before she leaves for New York.
Other starring roles soon followed: Elizabeth Fanshawe in Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) on television, widely considered to be one of the best Frankenstein films; the title role in 10 50-minute episodes of Anna Karenina, a 1977 BBC television epic co-starring Eric Porter as Karenin and Stuart Wilson as Vronsky; and Liz Rodenhurst in A Bit of a Do (1989) adapted from the Yorkshire novels of David Nobbs, with David Jason and Gwen Taylor. Liz was the promiscuous, middle-class mother of the bride who starts an affair with Jason’s working-class Ted Simcock, father of the groom. Continue reading...

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