Mary MacLeod

Mary Katrina Anne MacLeod (6 July 1937 – 7 June 2016) was an English-born Scottish actress who performed on the stage and in film and television productions of the United Kingdom. Born in Wednesbury to Scottish parents, she debuted in theatre in 1956 and had her first British cinema role in the Lindsay Anderson film if..... MacLeod continued to feature in minor roles until her career was ended early by a stroke in 2003.

Biography MacLeod was born in Wednesbury on 6 July 1937. She was the second of four children to the Scottish coach builder John MacLeod, She was raised in Birmingham, and educated at the Pelsall Senior School in Walsall. MacLeod continued to act during the evenings after becoming an English and drama teacher at a school in Darlaston, Staffordshire.

MacLeod returned to work with Anderson in the comedy film O Lucky Man! (1973) and portrayed multiple roles, including a landlady who seduced Malcolm McDowell's coffee sales representative and the wife of a vicar. That year, she also played a nurse in the drama play Equus. MacLeod later appeared in several television roles, such as June Wade in the Play for Today "Headmaster" (1974), Norah Trotter in an episode of The Duchess of Duke Street (1976) and a series-wide role as Becky Clegg in People Like Us (1978). In 1981, she played Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing and played a nurse in Brideshead Revisited. MacLeod was cast as Valerie Holdsworth in the film version of Brimstone and Treacle (1982), and visited Scotland to film the television series Taggart in the following year. From 1985 to 1986, she played the busybody and flustered gossip Diva Plaistow in the Channel 4 period comedy-drama series Mapp and Lucia.

Later roles in MacLeod's career were Venus Peter (1989), Doctor Finlay in the episode "The Greatness and the Power" (1985), the double bill Blue Heart at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1997 with which she toured internationally, the film The House of Mirth (2000), Ivy Lomas in the television drama Harold Shipman: Doctor Death (2002), and voiced Nanny in the direct-to-video film, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2003).

Personal life MacLeod married the teacher turned school inspector Michael Buckley in 1961 and the couple had a child who died at the age of two. She is survived by twins Alison and Sandy. Her husband Michael predeceased her in 2008.

In 2003 MacLeod suffered a stroke that ended her career and she died on 7 June 2016.