Jean Marsh, Emmy-Winning “Upstairs, Downstairs” Co-Creator and Star, Dies at 90

Marsh also appeared in films including 'Return to Oz' and 'Willow'

Jean Marsh has died at the age of 90.

Marsh died on Sunday, April 13, at her home in London, according to The New York Times.

Her cause of death was complications of dementia, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg told the outlet.

PEOPLE reached out to reps for Jean Marsh and Michael Lindsay-Hogg for additional information on April 13, but did not receive an immediate response.

Marsh co-created the 1971 British TV series Upstairs, Downstairs with Eileen Atkins and won an Emmy for her starring role as Rose Buck. She also appeared in the revival series in 2010. Other roles for Marsh included Return to Oz and Willow.

Marsh was born in London in 1934 and stayed in the city during the Blitz during World War II. "I remember thinking the bombing would never stop," she told PEOPLE in 1974. "When I was 5, I suddenly found I couldn't walk. The doctors said it was mental paralysis." As therapy, she was sent to dancing school and at 16 she switched to acting. She paid for voice lessons to get rid of her Cockney accent.

Marsh often felt the sting of growing up lower class in Britain’s rigid class hierarchy. "I'm desperately shy in big groups," she told PEOPLE in 1982. "When I meet people who are fairly grand, I'm not quite myself. It's because of the class system in England. I don't think it ever leaves you."

But as her acting career took off, she was also thrown together with upper class actors. From 1955 to 1960 she was married to Jon Pertwee, best known for portraying the third Doctor on Doctor Who. She was 19, and he was 15 years her senior. "The person he married was a little girl who just grew up and changed,” she said in 1974.

In the ‘50s, she began appearing on British and American TV, including in an episode of The Twilight Zone and in the TV play The Moon and Sixpence opposite Laurence Olivier and Geraldine Fitzgerald. She also appeared several times on Doctor Who. In 1959 she appeared on Broadway in Much Ado About Nothing, and in 1972 she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy.

But her big break came when she and Atkins, who was also from a lower class background, had the idea for Upstairs, Downstairs. Marsh’s mother had worked as a housemaid, and Atkins’ father had been an under-butler. "Our backgrounds were very 'downstairs,' and we always thought, 'Why don't people write about servants?' " Marsh said in 1982. "I was bored with playing upper-middle-class women, and furious on behalf of my class that people cast me 'upstairs' because I have good bone structure. As if good bone structure was exclusive to upstairs people!"

Atkins’ theater commitments kept her from appearing on the series, but Marsh starred as Rose, a parlormaid. The series ran for five seasons in the U.K. beginning in 1971. In 1974, it began to air on PBS and became the most popular show in Masterpiece Theater’s history. 

Marsh didn’t think she had much in common with Rose, who was timid and lonely. "Rose would have adored the family she served," she said in 1974. "They would have treated her like an animal, and she would have come back for more." But fans fell in love with the character, and she was nominated for the Emmy for outstanding lead actress during the show’s original run three times, winning in 1975. 

“It didn't give me a lot of money, but it gave me a lot of exposure," Marsh noted in 1982. "Although Rose had a sharp tongue, people felt for her and loved her. And once the public really likes you, they never stop."

Though the show was set in the past, Marsh didn’t think its popularity was fueled by longing for a “simpler” time. “It isn't just nostalgia for the ‘good old days,’ whatever they were, and the rigid, disciplined order of things. It goes beyond that, right back to the roots,” she told The New York Times in 1974. “Everyone is hooked on class distinction, whichever side of the tracks they come from. They may not admit it, but it's true. It covers everyone, rich and poor, privileged or not. And I know Americans especially love our costume dramas. . . . We've got that extra touch of class, as well as history.”

Marsh appeared in the first two seasons of the 1982 TV series 9 to 5, based on the film of the same name. She played Roz Keith, the overbearing office manager. "I don't like playing 100 percent goody-goodys," she said in 1982. "I think there are just as many evil and stupid women out there as men." Her costar Rita Moreno praised her to PEOPLE as “bright, witty, wonderfully cheeky and deliciously salty.”

She appeared in the 1980 horror film The Changeling and as the main antagonist of 1985’s Return to Oz, an unofficial sequel to The Wizard of Oz. She loved the film. “I think it was a Walt Disney film, but it was not a Walt Disney film in content; it was very, very dark,” she told the AV Club of the movie in 2012. “I know people who were very frightened when they saw it, and it was more successful when people could buy it, and children could sit at home with their parents. But it was wonderful to do.”

She also played the evil Queen Bavmorda in 1988’s Willow, written by George Lucas and directed by Ron Howard. Once again, playing mean was very fun. “It’s wonderful to snort at pigs and to say [snorts] to people and that you’re going to turn them into pigs,” she told the AV Club. “That was huge fun. I used to walk down the street, and kids would look at me and [gasps] and run away from me.” She also had a voice cameo in the 2022 TV sequel to the film.

In 1992, Marsh and Atkins created a new TV series, The House of Eliott, about dressmaker sisters. It aired stateside on A&E, but neither appeared in it. Other roles for Marsh included the British TV series The Ghost Hunter, the BBC’s 2008 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and 2008’s Crooked House.

Upstairs, Downstairs returned for a revival series in 2010 and aired for two seasons. Marsh reprised her role and received a fourth Emmy nomination for the series. She only appeared in two scenes of the second season after suffering a stroke. 

In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II named her an Officer of the British Empire.

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