Elizabeth Shepherd

Born in London to missionary parents, Elizabeth Shepherd first performed in public as a child, interpreting Burmese dances at mission-related events. Back in England, she studied drama at Bristol University and acted on stage with repertory companies in Manchester and Nottingham. Between 1961 and 1962, Shepherd appeared in plays with the Bristol Old Vic. In 1965, she moved to America, five years later headlining on Broadway as Marjorie Hasseltine in Barry England 's play Conduct Unbecoming. Her diverse roles on both the classical and the contemporary stage have included Lady Macbeth, Katherine of Aragon, Ophelia, Miss Havisham, Blanche Dubois, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Simone de Beauvoir and Daisy Werthan. On screen from 1959, Shepherd had her first recurring role as the naïve Jarndyce ward Ada Clare in the first BBC adaptation of Bleak House (1959) by Charles Dickens. Though the original casting choice for the iconic character Emma Peel in The Avengers (1961), she was axed from the show after completing just two episodes and replaced with Diana Rigg. Undaunted, Shepherd continued to appear in numerous cult series and period dramas through the 60s and 70s, once describing herself as the "Queen of BBC miniseries". On the big screen, she took the title role in Roger Corman 's The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) and co-starred as the romantic interest of James Franciscus in the World War II action film Hell Boats (1970). She later appeared in Damien: Omen II (1978) as freelance photojournalist Joan Hart, who, having uncovered the truth about the demonic teen, comes to a sticky end by means of a ten-wheeled Mack truck. More recently, she played Frances Putnam, the mother-in-law of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, in the biopic Amelia (2009). For TV, Shepherd's varied roles have included the Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra II in BBC's The Cleopatras (1983), the great detective's niece Peggy in Granada's The Adventures of Shirley Holmes (1997), a starring role as registered nurse Judy Owens in the Canadian medical drama series Side Effects (1994) and Margaret Thatcher in the made-for-television movie Shades of Black: The Conrad Black Story (2006). A resident of Canada since 1972, Shepherd continued to act on both sides of the Atlantic until 2016. From 2008, she has taught drama, Shakespeare and English Classics at the Stella Adler School and at such institutions as LAMDA in London, York University in Toronto and Columbia University in New York.