Jacqueline Pearce

Pearce was born in Woking, Surrey, on 20 December 1943.[1] Her mother left the family when she was 16 months old and she grew up spending time both living at her father's home in Byfleet and with a foster family.[6] She attended the Marist Convent School for Girls at West Byfleet,[1] where one of the teachers encouraged her to pursue her ambition of acting, and after leaving school, Pearce successfully auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).[8] Pearce also trained at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in Los Angeles.[6]

After graduating from RADA in 1963,[8] Pearce had small roles including in the television series Danger Man and A Question of Happiness, and in the film Sky West and Crooked.[9][10] In Spring 1965, she auditioned for Anthony Nelson Keys at Bray Studios, and won leading roles in two Hammer horror films, The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile.[8] These were filmed one after another on the same location and both released in 1966.[11]

Other film roles include the Carry On film Don't Lose Your Head (1966), Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968), White Mischief (1987), How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), and Princess Caraboo (1994).[5][10]

As well as appearing in the BBC children's programmes Dark Season (alongside Kate Winslet) and Moondial, Pearce appeared in the Doctor Who serial The Two Doctors as Chessene, a bloodthirsty alien.[12] She was associated with Doctor Who through her appearance in The Fearmonger as Sherilyn Harper, an audio drama by Big Finish Productions, and as Admiral Mettna in the webcast story Death Comes to Time. Pearce returned once again to Doctor Who from 2015, this time opposite John Hurt, as a regular in the Big Finish audio series based on the adventures of the War Doctor,[13] portraying Cardinal Ollistra, a leader of the Time Lords in the Time War who often clashes with the Eighth Doctor and the War Doctor over how far the Time Lords should be willing to go to achieve victory.

She remains best known for her role as Servalan in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7 (1978–1981).[2] The character was originally written for one episode, but was expanded to a regular role over four series due to Pearce's popularity.[5]

She appeared in the role of Rosa Dartle in the BBC dramatisation of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1974)[1] and a television version of Christopher Hampton's stage play The Philanthropist as Araminta which was first broadcast in 1975. She also appeared as an associate of the assassin Carlos in the television movie, The Bourne Identity (1988).[14]

Pearce also made guest appearances in TV series such as The Avengers, Public Eye, Callan, Dead of Night, Special Branch, The Zoo Gang, Spy Trap, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.[15] She appeared in two episodes of the spy series Man in a Suitcase, unusually in different roles within the same season.

Pearce had a short-lived marriage to Drewe Henley. After they divorced he married Felicity Kendal. A second marriage also ended in divorce.[1] Pearce suffered from clinical depression during periods of her life.[16] She was the subject of the third volume of MJTV's "The Actor Speaks" interview/drama CDs, with a special piece written for her by Tanith Lee.[17] Pearce recounted in her memoir her profound personal and spiritual renaissance while volunteering at the Vervet Monkey Foundation in South Africa, where she had gone for a short stay, but ended up staying five years, having realised that her "future lay here, in this magical land with these magical beings, who had so completely claimed my heart".[18] She described “the joy of family which hadn’t proved possible with human beings”.

Pearce was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2018 and died on 3 September 2018 at her home in Lancashire.[5]

• Jacqueline Pearce at IMDb