Date of Birth : Dec 22nd 1907
English actress. True stardom came to Ashcroft in 1934 when she played Juliet in a legendary production of Romeo and Juliet, at the New Theatre, in which Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud alternated in the roles of Romeo and Mercutio. She stayed at the top of the British theatrical profession for the remainder of her career, with some of the highlights Three Sisters (1937), The Heiress (1949), Antony and Cleopatra (1953), As You Like It and Cymbeline (as Imogen) (1957), The Taming of the Shrew (1960), and The War of the Roses, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s massive landmark compendium of the three Henry VI plays and Richard III, directed by Peter Hall for the RSC in 1963.
Ashcroft’s film and television appearances were rare but memorable. One of her earliest film roles was the minor part of the crofter’s wife in the Robert Donat version of The Thirty-Nine Steps.
In 1937, she appeared in a 30 minute excerpt of Twelfth Night on the BBC Television Service, alongside Greer Garson, the first known instance of a Shakespeare play being performed on television.
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