Mary Barclay

Mary Barclay (20 July 1916 – 19 February 2008) was an English film, television and theatre actress. She was best known for playing Stella Dane in the Crossroads television series, as well as her role in the 1973 film, A Touch of Class.

Early life Barclay was born Mary Biddulph in Williton, Somerset, England.

Career The couple emigrated to Canada after the war. There she landed her first acting role in the 1948 Canadian drama, Sins of the Fathers.

Barclay and her husband returned to Great Britain in 1956, where she continued to act in film, stage and television. She was cast in the Crossroads television series as Stella Dane, an overbearing mother-in-law during the 1960s. She also acted in the controversial Sex and the Other Woman in 1972. Sex and the Other Woman was cut by nine minutes because British censors objected to material in the film. Her other credits included roles in Dixon of Dock Green, Steptoe and Son, Spy Trap and Secret Army. She played Sophie Chantal in Secret Army, which was set in Belgium during World War II, from 1977 until 1979.

Death Mary Barclay died on 19 February 2008 at a nursing home in Guernsey at the age of 91. She had suffered from complications from a stroke which occurred seven years before her death.

Her first husband, Richard Barclay, had died from a heart attack in 1985. She married her second husband, David Taylor, a Scottish widower, in 1987.