Mary E. Peach (20 October 1934 – 26 January 2025) was a South African-born British film and television actress.
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Early life and career
Mary E. Peach was born in Durban on 20 October 1934, to Cyrial and May Peach. After being nominated for a BAFTA Award as most promising newcomer for the 1959 film Room at the Top, she went on to appear on many British films and television series over the next 25 years. She starred opposite Rock Hudson in the film A Gathering of Eagles and in 1970 she appeared in the film Scrooge, a musical version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney.
Peach appeared as a regular in the television series Couples, Inside Story, the 1966 BBC adaptation of The Three Musketeers, Fox and the Doctor Who serial The Enemy of the World. Amongst her other television appearances she played Colonel Tanya Smolenko, a Russian counter espionage agent in The Saint episode "The Gadget Lovers" (1967) and starred opposite Ian McShane in Disraeli (1978).
When Diana Rigg left The Avengers in 1968, she was one of the actresses considered for the role of Steed's new assistant. She also played Mae (Sister Woman) in the BBC production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Natalie Wood as Maggie, Robert Wagner as Brick, Sir Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy, and Maureen Stapleton as Big Mama.
Personal life and death
Peach married film producer Thomas Clyde on 18 May 1961 at the Chelsea Register Office in London. They met on the set of the 1960 film Follow That Horse!, which Clyde produced. The couple separated in the 1980s and later divorced. She later married to the screenwriter and director Jimmy Sangster from 1995 until his death in 2011.
Peach died on 26 January 2025, at the age of 90.