Actress known for The Jewel in the Crown and A Room With a View

Born: December 18, 1935;

Died: October 21, 2017

ROSEMARY Leach, who has died aged 81, was an actress who had a long and successful career on television, although she was best known for the role of Mrs Honeychurch in the 1985 Oscar-winning film A Room With A View. She also played a mother in the long-running sitcom My Family - many of the roles in Rosemary Leach's career were mothers.

Born in Shropshire, the daughter of two teachers, Leach only decided on a career in acting after spotting an article about Rada in a magazine. She auditioned and was accepted (after a time selling shoes in John Lewis) although Rada was not a happy experience for her and it was not until she went into rep that she truly started to learn her job. She first appeared with the Amersham Repertory Theatre before appearing in rep theatre in Coventry, Birmingham and Liverpool; she was also the member of a touring children's theatre company and performed from the back of a lorry at holiday camps. It was not a glamorous start but Leach had fond memories of those early days.

Her first break on television was in small roles in Police Surgeon and Z Cars in the 1960s, which led to a leading role in the soap opera The Power Game in 1965 - the show was a forerunner of the brash soaps of the 1980s, with Leach playing the lover of the ruthless tycoon at the centre of the series played by Patrick Wymark.

Leach then went on to appear in several television comedies, notably with Ronnie Corbett in No, That's Me Over Here in 1967 and Life Begins at Forty with Derek Nimmo in 1978, although she later regretted appearing in so much comedy and believed that it set back her theatre career.

"I did one too many of those Ronnie Corbett sitcoms," she said. "And suddenly I got very frightened and realised that I had to get my career back where it belonged before it fell apart into real television rubbish."

She did have a notable success on stage with 84 Charing Cross Road, for which she won an Olivier Award. She played an eccentric American spinster who corresponded with a book seller for over 20 years. Although she did very little Shakespeare, she also played Emilia in Jonathan Miller's BBC 1981 production of Othello.

A Room With A View came along four years later, with Leach as the snobbish, skittish mother of Helena Bonham Carter's character. The film, produced by Merchant Ivory, won Oscars for its script and design. Another notable film role was as David Essex's mother in the 1973 film That'll Be The Day.

Back on television, Leach appeared in The Jewel in the Crown, the celebrated television drama about the last days of the British Raj in India. Although Leach's contribution was confined to the studio, the series began her long interest in India, where she would often go on holiday with her husband.

Two years later, she had the memorable role of one of Nigel Havers's victims in The Charmer, the ITV period drama about a cad who cheats women out of their money. Her other screen credits include TV movies Cider With Rosie (1971) and Just Between Ourselves (1978) and the dramas Midsomer Murders and Heartbeat. She also played Mavis Hunt, the wife of Rex Hunt, the governor of the Falkland Islands, in An Ungentlemanly Act, the 1992 BBC play about the first days of the invasion by Argentina.

In later years, Leach was a regular in the long-running sitcom My Family, which starred Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker (Leach played Wanamaker's mum). Lindsay said Leach had been a surrogate mother to him in real life. "I always regarded her as my mum which is strange as she played David Essex's mum in That'll Be The Day," he said. "But she sort of adopted me."

Leach was also one of the many actresses who have taken on one of the trickier parts: the Queen. She played her several times, including in the television plays Prince William and Tea with Betty.

Despite her success, she did have some regrets about her career. "I regret that I didn't do much Shakespeare," she said. "I think it would have helped me a good deal if I'd done more classical stuff. But I think the television got in the way, although I was very, very lucky and had good directors. People looked at you and thought you couldn't do it in the theatre - I was never asked to work for the RSC or the National Theatre but I'm as good as Judi Dench, I'm sure I am."

Leach was twice nominated for a supporting actress Bafta for her roles in A Room With A View and That'll Be The Day. She was married twice and is survived by her second husband, Colin Starkey.