Peggy Mount

Margaret Rose Mount (2 May 1915 – 13 November 2001) was an English actress. As a child, she found acting an escape from an unhappy home life. After playing in amateur productions, she was taken on by a repertory company and spent nine years in various British towns, learning her craft. In 1955, she got her big break in the comic play Sailor Beware!: she created the leading role in a repertory production and, though unknown to London audiences, was given the part when the play was presented in the West End. She became known for playing domineering middle-aged women in plays, films and television shows.

Mount occasionally performed in comedies from the classical repertoire, including works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Goldsmith and Sheridan, and she was a member of The Old Vic, National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare companies in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, respectively.

Later in her career, Mount was cast more frequently in serious parts, including the title role of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage on stage, and in several television dramas. She retired after going blind and spent her last years in the actors' retirement home, Denville Hall, in northwest London.

Life and career Early years

Mount was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, the younger child of Alfred John Mount, a grocer's assistant, and his wife, Rose, née Penney. Her childhood was unhappy; her father was an invalid who struggled to support his family, and her mother displayed no sign of affection for their younger daughter. Mount was educated at Leigh North Street School, Leigh-on-Sea, where she first discovered her talent for acting, playing Rose in Snow White and Rose Red. Her father died when she was fourteen; her schooling came to an end and she began working as a secretary. As a schoolgirl, she enjoyed acting in the drama society of her local Wesleyan chapel and after she left school she performed with local amateur companies. She took lessons from a drama tutor, Phyllis Reader, at weekends.

Her first professional appearance was at Keighley, Yorkshire, in Hindle Wakes in 1944. With Harry Hanson and his Hanson Court touring company, her parts included the eccentric Dowager Queen in The Sleeping Prince. She stayed with the company for three years and then for six years she worked with a succession of provincial repertory companies, playing what The Times later called "a formidable gallery of mainly working-class roles".

1950s During the Worthing repertory season, Mount played the central role, the domestic tyrant Emma Hornett, in a new comedy, Sailor Beware! She was a success in the part, but when a London management wanted to present the play in the West End, they looked for a better-known name than hers. In The Observer, Kenneth Tynan commented, "She scorches the earth about her... The savage impatience of Miss Mount's acting must be seen to be believed ... The house rightly rose to her at the curtain."

Mount appeared in two films released in 1956: she played Police Sergeant Fire in Dry Rot, an adaptation of the Whitehall farce, and she reprised the role of Emma Hornett in a film version of Sailor Beware!. Over the rest of the 1950s, her career included stage, cinema and television work. She played the cameo role of the Charwoman in Diego Fabbri's religious drama Man on Trial at the Lyric Theatre, London in 1957. In the same year, she featured in the comedy film The Naked Truth, with Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers. From 1958 onwards, she became a regular television performer. Opposite Richard Hearne, she was cast as a landlady in The Adventures of Mr. Pastry, and then in a central role in The Larkins, an early ITV comedy series featuring David Kossoff and Mount as a suburban London couple, Alf and Ada Larkin, and their family. Six series of the show were produced between 1958 and 1964, and the leading characters, the put-upon but wily Alf and the formidable Ada, appeared in a spin-off feature film, Inn for Trouble. In a 1958 television version of Arsenic and Old Lace, Mount was cast against type as dotty serial poison-dispensing Abby Brewster.

1960s In 1960, Mount was cast as the Nurse in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Romeo and Juliet at The Old Vic. The notices for her (and the production) were tepid, but the role remained one of her two favourites, along with Emma Hornett. Kenneth Tynan commented in a review for The Observer: "We shall not soon see a Mrs. Hardcastle who scolds, capers, coquettes and bellows with anything like the majestic, intimidating authority of Peggy Mount. For her sake alone I recommend a visit."

In 1961–62, Mount appeared in another ITV sitcom called Winning Widows, co-starring with Avice Landone as two sisters who have each survived three husbands. The series made little impression, and it was not until 1966 that Mount was cast in a television series that approached the popularity of The Larkins; this was the sitcom George and the Dragon, with Sid James and John Le Mesurier. Four series were made between 1966 and 1968. Mount was given a role of a quite different character in the comedy-thriller series John Browne's Body, in which she played a bungling amateur sleuth.

Mount's films in the 1960s included One Way Pendulum (1964) with George Cole, Eric Sykes and Jonathan Miller; Hotel Paradiso (1966) with Alec Guinness and Gina Lollobrigida; and Carol Reed's film of the musical Oliver! (1968) in which she played Mrs Bumble. Mount appeared regularly on BBC Radio from the 1960s to the 1980s, on panel shows, Woman's Hour, and arts features. Her acting roles for radio in the 1960s included the title role in Ted Willis's Big Bertha (1962), Emma Hornett in adaptations of Sailor Beware! and Watch it, Sailor (both 1965) and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1965).

On stage, Mount appeared in London and the regions during the decade. At Bristol Old Vic in October 1962 she played Queenie Hesseltine in All Things Bright and Beautiful, subsequently appearing at the Phoenix Theatre, London, in the same play; at the Globe in March 1964 she played Mrs. Spicer in Mother's Boy; at the Arts Theatre, Ipswich, in September 1964 she appeared as Mrs. Wolff in The Beaver Coat; and at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham in May 1965 she played Gladys in Did You Feel It Move?

From 1971 to 1972, Mount starred in the television comedy Lollipop Loves Mr Mole with Hugh Lloyd and Pat Coombs. Her character in this series was still formidable, but gentler than many of her characteristic earlier roles.

In 1987, Mount appeared as Ursula in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. Two years later, she was Madame Arcati in a revival of Blithe Spirit at the Lyric, Hammersmith. After her long run as a sitcom star had ended with You're Only Young Twice, Mount had a regular role as Aunt Fanny in the second series of All Change (1991), a children's programme starring Frankie Howerd. Mrs. Weaver in Virtual Murder (1992),

As the nanny in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1996, Chichester) with a cast that included Derek Jacobi, Imogen Stubbs, Trevor Eve and Frances Barber, Mount gave what her biographer Verena Wright calls "a great performance as the play's most sympathetic and sensible character".

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1954 The Embezzler Mrs. Larkin 1956 Sailor Beware! (released in the US as Panic in the Parlor) Emma Hornett 1956 Dry Rot Sergeant Fire 1957 The Naked Truth Flora Ransom 1960 Inn for Trouble Ada Larkin 1963 Ladies Who Do Mrs. Cragg 1964 One Way Pendulum Mrs. Mara Gantry 1966 Hotel Paradiso Angelique Boniface 1966 Finders Keepers Mrs. Bragg 1968 Oliver! Mrs. Bumble 1991 The Princess and the Goblin Goblin Queen Voice

Selected Television roles