Jean Marsh, British actress and co-creator of 'Upstairs, Downstairs,' dies at 90

Marsh played a housemaid on the worldwide hit set in Edwardian London.

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Jean Marsh, the British actress who co-created the enduring serialized hit TV series “Upstairs, Downstairs,” died Sunday at the age of 90.

The Sunday Times of London said Marsh died at her London home due to complications from dementia.

Marsh gave television one of the best loved programs in history when she teamed with actress Eileen Atkins to create “Upstairs, Downstairs,” set in a London estate during the Edwardian era. The series depicted the lives of the staff toiling downstairs at 165 Eaton Place and the wealthy Bellamy family living above.

Marsh played Rose Buck, the head parlormaid in the Bellamy home.

The drama made its debut on London Weekend Television in 1971 and became a major prime time series hit for PBS in 1974 when it was imported for U.S. audiences. The series depicting class distinctions in British society ran for five seasons and was revived for the BBC in 2011 with Marsh recreating her role.

Robert Blake and Jean Marsh hold up their Emmy statuettes for at the Emmy Awards in 1975.

(Associated Press)

Marsh told NPR in 2011 that she and Atkins came up with the idea while watching a period drama on TV.

“We’d been watching something full of rich people, rich food, beautiful clothes and we had chips on our shoulders, I suppose. And we thought, ‘Who did all this work? Who cooked? Who washed up?’ ” she said. “All those things we put together and thought, ‘Let’s write something about the downstairs people, the servants, the people who serve.’ ”

During its run, “Upstairs, Downstairs” earned seven prime-time Emmy Awards, including a 1975 lead actress in a drama series win for Marsh.

Jean Lyndsey Torren Marsh was born July 1, 1934 in Stoke Newington, a northwest section of London. Her father was a printer’s assistant and her mother worked as a housemaid, giving her the insights she needed to write “Upstairs, Downstairs.” (Atkins’ parents also worked as household servants.)

Continuous coverage of the Watergate hearings in 1973 drew big audiences and viewer contributions. It also led to the creation of the “PBS NewsHour.”

Marsh began her performing career as a teenager, appearing as a dancer in the Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger film, “The Tales of Hoffmann.” She made her Broadway stage debut in 1959, starring opposite John Gielgud in “Much Ado About Nothing.” That same year she played opposite Laurence Olivier in David Susskind’s TV production of “The Moon and Sixpence” for NBC.

Marsh split her time between the U.S. and London during the 1960s, with roles in the film “Cleopatra,” and TV shows such as “I Spy,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Doctor Who” and “The Informer.”

After “Upstairs, Downstairs” became a hit, Marsh worked steadily in the U.S. and Great Britain for the next five decades.

Her film roles include Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 film “Frenzy,” and the spy drama “The Eagle Has Landed.” She played Queen Bavmorda in Ron Howard’s 1988 hit “Willow.”

Marsh also had numerous guest roles on U.S. TV series including “Murder, She Wrote” and “The Love Boat” and as a regular on the ABC sitcom “Nine to Five.”

In 1996, she wrote a successful romance novel, “Fiennders Keepers,” which dealt with social change in a rural community.

She played Mrs. Ferrars in a well-received 2008 TV mini-series version of “Sense and Sensibility.”

Marsh was married the late actor Jon Pertwee, who was 15 years her senior, in 1955 when she was just 20. They divorced five years later.

She later lived with actors Kenneth Haigh and Albert Finney before beginning a 10-year relationship with the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

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