Publication of Peggy Ashcroft: A Life (originally Peggy Ashcroft: The Secret Woman) by Garry O'Connor caused a furore as the Sunday Times bid a record six-figure sum for the serial rights, and ran three extracts.
Dame Peggy Ashcroft was indubitably the greatest English classical actress of the 20th-century, and this remains the first and only full biography of her. She discouraged all questions and any curiosity surrounding her private life, and it stayed this way until after her death in 1991.
Her birth is also shrouded in darkness, but most of all, as this fascinating and searing life records, she never reconciled herself to the differences between role-playing and private life. She was married three times, with a stream of famous lovers, including Paul Robson, Harold Pinter, JB Priestley, Walter Sickert and Michel Saint Denis.
The frank revelations of her hitherto unknown conquests in the bedroom - as opposed to the glories of her performances in The Jewel in the Crown and A Passage to India, and the tragic roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre – shocked the public.
The press controversy surrounding O'Connor's biography raged for weeks. Yet, apart from attacks on, and defences of, its scandalous content the book was called 'A great achievement' by The Times. It was highly praised by her close friend, Labour leader Michael Foot and one of her lovers, Lord Tweedsmuir, wrote in the Spectator: 'To have known her, on whatever terms, may be seen as a privilege clearly cherished. Why this should be so is clearly illustrated in O'Connor’s book.'
Dame Peggy Ashcroft was indubitably the greatest English classical actress of the 20th-century, and this remains the first and only full biography of her. She discouraged all questions and any curiosity surrounding her private life, and it stayed this way until after her death in 1991.
Her birth is also shrouded in darkness, but most of all, as this fascinating and searing life records, she never reconciled herself to the differences between role-playing and private life. She was married three times, with a stream of famous lovers, including Paul Robson, Harold Pinter, JB Priestley, Walter Sickert and Michel Saint Denis.
The frank revelations of her hitherto unknown conquests in the bedroom - as opposed to the glories of her performances in The Jewel in the Crown and A Passage to India, and the tragic roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre – shocked the public.
The press controversy surrounding O'Connor's biography raged for weeks. Yet, apart from attacks on, and defences of, its scandalous content the book was called 'A great achievement' by The Times. It was highly praised by her close friend, Labour leader Michael Foot and one of her lovers, Lord Tweedsmuir, wrote in the Spectator: 'To have known her, on whatever terms, may be seen as a privilege clearly cherished. Why this should be so is clearly illustrated in O'Connor’s book.'
