Jacqueline Pearce

Jacqueline Pearce (20 December 1943 – 3 September 2018) was a British film and television actress. She was best known for her portrayal of the principal villain Servalan in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7 (1978–1981), a performance which her obituarist in The Times wrote produced "a sexual awakening for a generation of sci-fi fans".<ref name="TOBIT" />

Pearce studied at both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and at the Actors Studio. After early roles in two Hammer horror films, The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile, she played opposite Jerry Lewis in Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River. On stage, she acted in Otherwise Engaged, directed by Harold Pinter, and in Tom Stoppard's Night and Day, and she had numerous television, theatre and audio roles, including in Doctor Who, one notable role being the Doctor's companion Cardinal Ollistra in Big Finish Productions audio dramas.

She suffered from clinical depression during periods of her life, which she discussed in her memoir, From Byfleet to the Bush (2012). Pearce spent five years working at the Vervet Monkey Foundation in South Africa, before returning to the UK in 2015.

Early life

Jacqueline Pearce was born in Byfleet, Surrey, on 20 December 1943.<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" /><ref name="mcfarlane" /> She grew up spending time both living at her father's home in Byfleet and with a foster family, after her mother had left when Pearce was 16 months old.<ref name="TELOBIT">Template:Cite news</ref> She attended the Marist Convent School for Girls at West Byfleet,<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" /> 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).<ref name="HGLAM">Template:Cite book</ref>

Career

After graduating from RADA in 1963,<ref name="HGLAM" /> Pearce made her television debut in the series A Question of Happiness, in which she played a waitress in the episode "Watch Me I'm a Bird", alongside her RADA contemporaries Drewe Henley, Ian McShane and John Hurt.<ref name="STARBURST" /><ref name="BFI" /><ref name="TVZ">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In the same year, she flew to Yugoslavia to film a short appearance for the film Genghis Khan.<ref name="STARBURST" /> She later appeared in minor roles in Danger Man<ref name="Condon2018" /><ref name="BFI" /> and in Sky West and Crooked, where McShane played a character who was her boyfriend.<ref name="Condon2018" /><ref name="BFI" /> 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.<ref name="HGLAM" /> These were filmed one after another on the same location and both released in 1966.<ref name="HGLAM" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

She married Henley in 1963, after they met when he directed her in a short film while they were at RADA.<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" /><ref name="STARBURST">Template:Cite magazine</ref> She divorced him in 1967 after he left her for Felicity Kendal.<ref name="TOBIT" /> Pearce left for America in 1967 following her divorce and stayed there until 1971. She worked for Sammy Davis Jr., answering his fan mail, and trained at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in Los Angeles.<ref name="STARBURST" /><ref name="TOBIT" /> In 1974, she appeared in the role of Rosa Dartle in the BBC dramatisation of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1974).<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" /> In a 1975 television version of Christopher Hampton's stage play The Philanthropist, Pearce played Araminta. The show was criticised by Ann Sheldon Williams of The Stage, who felt that the production was not appropriate for a transfer to television as it should rely on some distancing from the audience, but felt that Pearce's performance "had the right blend of softness and predatoriness".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Pearce remains best known for her role as Servalan, the principal villain in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7 (1978–1981).<ref name="mcfarlane">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="GRAUN3SEPT">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The character was originally written for one episode, but was expanded to a regular role over four series due to Pearce's popularity.<ref name="GRAUN3SEPT" /> Initially the "Supreme Commander", the character later became "President", and is cited by film and television scholar Steven Duckworth as one of the characters that develops significantly during the programme, which he regards as particularly notable as she is a villain.<ref name="DUCKW" /> Duckworth also opines that Servalan "offers a potentially empowering female character through her transgression of established gender binaries, this nonconformity is closely bound up with her role as the show's primary villain".<ref name="DUCKW">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Pearce had her hair cropped short when auditioning for the role, and was asked by the producers to keep it short. She influenced the production team to dress her character in feminine clothes rather than the military uniform that they had suggested.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Pearce reprised the role in a 90-minute play entitled The Sevenfold Crown on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, alongside several other original Blake's 7 cast members.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

She said of Servalan that "I saw her as a woman who was very damaged and driven by pain ... what drove her was not a desire to be evil but a desire to escape from pain."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In a 2000 interview for The Observer, Pearce said that, given her own low self-esteem, the role had affected her personal life for years, as she had been attracted to the character's power and taken on some aspects of Servalan's personality, telling the interviewers that it had taken "the best years of my life to recover from Servalan".<ref name="HOWEVIL" />

The Aberdeen Press and Journal reviewer Tom Lynch referred to Pearce as Servalan as "one of telly's finest baddies".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Roy West of the Liverpool Echo felt that "Amid a number of nebulous performances, [Pearce is] a shining star."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Historian Dominic Sandbrook wrote in his Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979–1982 (2019) that "Played with scenery-chewing relish by Jacqueline Pearce, Servalan is at once immensely glamorous and thoroughly evil" and drew a parallel with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who took office in 1979, in that both were "perfectly happy to exploit [their] femininity".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Vanessa Thorpe and Jakki Phillips said in The Observer in 2000 that "she was the evil genius who haunted the dreams of adolescent boys. With her pathological lust for power and low voice, early encounters with Servalan, the arch-villainess of the BBC sci-fi series Blake's Seven, are remembered as formative experiences by many who were young in the Seventies."<ref name="HOWEVIL" /> Pearce's obituary in The Times stated that her performance provoked "a sexual awakening for a generation of sci-fi fans".<ref name="TOBIT">Template:Cite news</ref>

Other film roles include the Carry On film Don't Lose Your Head (1966), White Mischief (1987), How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), and Princess Caraboo (1994).<ref name="GRAUN3SEPT" /><ref name="BFI" /> In Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968) she played opposite Jerry Lewis in his first non-Hollywood film.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Pearce told an interviewer in 1981 that as the film had been a commercial failure, it had not helped her career.<ref name="COLE81" /> She appeared as an associate of the assassin Carlos in the television movie, The Bourne Identity (1988).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She also acted in theatre, including Otherwise Engaged, directed by Harold Pinter.<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" />

As well as appearing in the BBC children's programmes Dark Season (alongside Kate Winslet) and Moondial,<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" /> Pearce appeared in the Doctor Who serial The Two Doctors (1985) as Chessene, a bloodthirsty alien,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="HERALDOBIT" /> taking the role at short notice after Elizabeth Spriggs had left the production.<ref name="IVB">Template:Cite magazine</ref> She was later associated with Doctor Who again through her appearances 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 to Doctor Who in 2015, this time opposite John Hurt, as a regular in the Big Finish audio series based on the adventures of the War Doctor, portraying Cardinal Ollistra, a leader of the Time Lords in the Time War.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Pearce also made guest appearances in TV series such as The Avengers, Public Eye, Callan, Dead of Night, Special Branch, Spy Trap, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.<ref name="BFI" /><ref name="PEYE" />

In 1980 Pearce played Ruth on stage in Tom Stoppard's Night and Day, a performance that Ann Fitzgerald in The Stage praised as she felt that Pearce had "an enviable range of tone and mood at her command".<ref name="SND"/> For the 1984/85 pantomime season, Pearce appeared in Cinderella at the Gaumont Theatre, Southampton, alongside Doctor Who actors Colin Baker, Mary Tamm, Anthony Ainley and Nicola Bryant.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Pearce and her fellow Blake's 7 actor Paul Darrow (Avon) were voice actors for the 1996 videogame Gender Wars.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Her obituarist in The Daily Telegraph wrote that Pearce possessed "considerable depth and emotional range" which "was not often exploited",<ref name="TELOBIT" /> whilst her obituary in The Times read that "She could and should have achieved so much more. At Rada she was considered one of the most promising thespians of her generation by contemporaries such as Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt" but that her mental illness had "blighted her career".<ref name="TOBIT" />

Personal life

Pearce suffered from clinical depression during periods of her life.<ref name="TOBIT" /> She recounted in her memoir what she regarded as a 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.<ref name="TOBIT" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She described "the joy of family which hadn't proved possible with human beings".<ref name="TOBIT" /> Paul Owens of Starburst praised the book, which he described as a "tortured, agonized memoir of a woman battling with insecurity, mental illness, poverty, homelessness and disillusionment".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In addition to her marriage to Drewe Henley, from 1963 until their divorce in 1967, Pearce was married a second time, which also ended in divorce.<ref name="GRAUNOBIT" /> Pearce returned to the UK in 2015.<ref name="TOBIT" /> She was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2018 and died on 3 September 2018 at her home in Lancashire.<ref name="GRAUN3SEPT" /><ref name="GRAUNOBIT" />

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref
1964	A Question of Happiness	girl in cafe	episode "Watch me I'm a bird"	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="STG64">Template:Cite news</ref>
1964	A Question of Happiness	Frances	episode "Fred"	<ref name="BFI" /><ref name="STG64" />
1964	Danger Man	Jeannie	episode "Don't Nail Him Yet"	<ref name="Condon2018">Template:Cite book</ref>
1965	Giants on Saturday	girl in pub		<ref name="BFI" />
1966	Public Eye	Jill	episode "Tell Me About the Crab"	<ref name="PEYE">Template:Cite news</ref>
1966	The Avengers	Marianne Gray	episode "A Sense of History"	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1967	Haunted	Jenny Bryce	episode "I Like It Here"	<ref name="BFI" />
1967	Theatre 625	Eva Franzia	episode "The Magicians: The Incantation of Casanova"	<ref name="BFI" />
1967	Man in a Suitcase	Miss Brown	episode "Sweet Sue"	<ref name="BFI" />
1968	Armchair Theatre	cast member	episode "The Glove Puppet"	<ref name="BFI" />
1968	The Root of All Evil?	Connie	episode "West of Eden"	<ref name="BFI" />
1968	Man in a Suitcase	Ruth Klinger	episode "Somebody Loses, Somebody...Wins?"	<ref name="BFI" />
1969	Callan	Eva	episode "Once a Big Man, Always a Big Man"	<ref name="BFI" />
1971	The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes	Jenny Pryde	episode "The Case of the Dixon Torpedo"	<ref name="BFI" />
1972	New Scotland Yard	Leonie Peters	episode "The Banker"	<ref name="BFI" />
1972	Dead of Night	Sarah Hopkirk	episode "Bedtime"	<ref name="BFI" />
1973	The Edwardians	Countess Halecka	episode "Lloyd George"	<ref name="BFI" />
1973	Hadleigh	Sue	episode "Second Thoughts"	<ref name="BFI" />
1974–1975	David Copperfield	Rosa Dartle		<ref name="BFI" />
1974	The Aweful Mr. Goodall	Madame Prigent	episode "Clara"	<ref name="BFI" />
1974	Vienna 1900	Anna Rupius	2 episodes	<ref name="BFI" />
1974	Special Branch	Helga Moritz	episode "Catherine the Great"	<ref name="BFI" />
1975	Churchill's People	Mrs Parker	episode "Mutiny"	<ref name="BFI" />
1975	Couples	Claudia Haswell	5 episodes	<ref name="BFI" />
1975	Spy Trap	Helen Machin	episode "With Friends Like You"	<ref name="BFI" />
1975	The Philanthropist	Araminta		<ref name="BFI" />
1977	Leap in the Dark	Dorothy McEwan	episode "The Ghost of Ardachie Lodge2	<ref name="BFI" />
1978–1981	Blake's 7	Servalan		<ref name="BFI" />
1978	Shadows	hostess	episode "And for My Next Trick"	<ref name="BFI" />
1979	Measure for Measure	Mariana		<ref name="BFI" /><ref name="IVA">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
1980	Star Games	on-screen participant		<ref name="BFI" />
1985	What Mad Pursuit?	cast member		<ref name="BFI" />
1985	Doctor Who	Chessene	serial The Two Doctors	<ref name="HERALDOBIT" />
1985	The Bourne Identity	Madame Jacqui		<ref name="HERALDOBIT">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="IVA" />
1988–90	Moondial	Miss Vole/Miss Raven	5 episodes	<ref name="BFI" />
1991	Dark Season	Miss Pendragon	3 episodes	<ref name="BFI" />
1993	The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles	Annabelle Levi	episode "Paris October 1916"	<ref name="BFI" />
1999	Mrs. Pollifax	cast member		<ref name="BFI" />
2002	Daniel Deronda	Baroness Langen		<ref name="BFI" />
2006	Casualty	Elspeth Lang	episode "No Place Like..."	<ref name="BFI" />
2016	Pointless Celebrities	on-screen participant		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Template:Abbr
1965	Changes	cast member	short	<ref name="BFI" />
1965	Genghis Khan	Shah's DaughterTemplate:Citation needed		<ref name="mcfarlane" />
1966	Sky West and Crooked	Cammellia		<ref name="BFI" />
1966	The Plague of the Zombies	Alice Tompson		<ref name="BFI" />
1966	The Reptile	Anna Franklyn		<ref name="BFI" />
1967	Don't Lose Your Head	Third lady		<ref name="BFI" /><ref name="IVA" />
1968	Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River	Pamela Lester		<ref name="BFI" />
1980	Weekend	cast member	student film	<ref name="BFI" />
1988	White Mischief	Idina		<ref name="BFI" />
1989	How to Get Ahead in Advertising	Maud		<ref name="BFI" />
1994	Princess Caraboo	Lady Apthorpe		<ref name="BFI" />
1995	The Contract	cast member	short	<ref name="BFI" />
1998	Guru in Seven	Joan, 'The oyster lady'		<ref name="BFI" />

Theatre

Dates	Title	Role	Venue	Notes	Template:Abbr
1964	The Judge	Pat Dean	Cambridge Theatre	author: John Mortimer, director: Stuart Burge	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1968	Smile Boys, That's the Style	Kate Wood	Citizens Theatre	author: John Hale, director: Michael Blakemore	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1975	Otherwise Engaged		Queen's Theatre	director: Harold Pinter	<ref name="GRAUNOBIT">Template:Cite news</ref>
1977	A Midsummer Night's Dream	Titania	Northcott Theatre, and tour of Devon and Cornwall	director: Geoffrey Reeves	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1980	Night and Day	Ruth	Belgrade Theatre	author: Tom Stoppard, director: Robert Hamlin	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="SND">Template:Cite news</ref>
1981	Witness for the Prosecution		Essex Hall, London	author: Agatha Christie, director: Robert Henderson	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1981	Wait Until Dark		Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke	Author: Frederick Knott, director: Cyril Frankel	<ref name="COLE81">Template:Cite news</ref>
1983	Outlaw		Haymarket Studio, Leicester, and national tour	author: Michael Abbensetts, director: Robert Gillespie	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1992	Shadowlands	Ruth	Belgrade Theatre	author: William Nicholson, director: Rumu Sen-Gupta	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1997	When God wanted a Son		New End Theatre	author: Arnold Wesker, director: Spencer Butler	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1999	A Star is Torn	Co-writer and performer	Gilded Ballroom (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)	Co-writer and director: Spencer Butler	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2000	Deception	Marlborough Pub and Theatre			<ref name="HOWEVIL">Template:Cite news</ref>
2001	Aphrodite Blues	New End Theatre			<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2001	Dangerous Corner	Garrick Theatre	Maud Mockridge		<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

External links

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