Alex Marshall (actor and director)


Alex Marshall is an English actress and director, who was most active from the 1960s to the 1980s.
She has acted and directed mostly on television, but has worked on stage in both careers.

Work

Beginning her career as an actress, Marshall had many roles in theatre and television productions. In 1966 she appeared on stage as Audrey Johnson in Countercrime, a play directed by Hugh Goldie, a production later recorded for television. From 1969 to 1974 she was a storyteller for BBC Television’s Jackanory. In 1970, she appeared on stage again, in Keep Out, Love in Progress by Walter Hall, taking the lead, opposite Robert Gillespie.
In the BBC serial of Jude the Obscure, Marshall took the leading role of Arabella Donn, a pig-keeper’s daughter who seduces and marries Jude. Reviewing the production in Life, John Leonard found that “Alex Marshall as Arabella steals the series”.
Marshall abandoned her acting career in 1974, having made more than three hundred appearances on television over the previous ten years, to become a television director. She commented to Des Wilson, for an article in The Observer, that her income had arrived at £5,000 a year, but she was disillusioned. She explained:
In 1976, Marshall was researcher and script editor for Granada Television’s Crown Court and later went on to direct episodes of the show. In 1978 she directed Empire Road, a BBC Two weekly serial, and other directing work included episodes of Jackanory Playhouse, ITV Playhouse, BBC2 Play of the Week, and Play for Today. In his memoirs, the actor Norman Beaton recalled Marshall from their time together on Empire Road: “An attractive blonde, she had a disarming smile which concealed a will of iron.”
In 1989, Marshall directed a London stage production of Peter King's The Health Farm.

Television appearances

Television as director