Actress known for Crossroads

Born: May 31, 1937;

Died: August 4, 2018

JANET Hargreaves, who has died aged 81, was an actress who played Rosemary Hunter, the wife and then ex-wife of motel manager David Hunter, on and off for a decade in the heyday of Crossroads, the popular ITV soap opera about a motel in the Midlands.

“From its earliest days Crossroads was taunted with criticisms of its wobbly sets and often wobblier performers,” wrote television historian Jeff Evans. “Lines were fluffed or simply forgotten, scripts were wooden and plots transparent.”

But the show was once as much a part of the British television soap diet as Corrie or EastEnders and Evans conceded “At the same time few programmes have won the hearts of so many viewers.”

Hargreaves brought to life one of the most colourful characters in the programme which ran from 1964 to 1988. She debuted in the role of Rosemary in 1973 when she and David (Ronald Allen) arrived in the Midlands from Bermuda, where they had been running a hotel.

Increasingly unstable, Rosemary tried to shoot David, ended up in a mental hospital and was written out the series in 1980.

The daughter of an Army colonel, Hargreaves was born in Reigate, Surrey, in 1937, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

She acted in repertory theatre and in the West End, claiming the distinction of being the first woman to play all three female roles in the long-running Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap.

By the early 1960s she was also getting television work, including the role of a rather sinister nun in a 1962 episode of The Avengers. And she worked regularly with Ronald Allen on Compact (1962-63), a soap opera set in the offices of a glossy magazine. She was a secretary and he was the editor.

On Crossroads her character’s marriage broke down, she and David divorced and she moved to Switzerland. But she returned frequently to see her son (and interfere in his life) and to try to rekindle the flame with her ex-husband. When David got engaged in 1980 she gave up trying to get him back and decided to shoot him instead.

“People love villains,” she said. “They do love Technicolor villains and I was that. I was awfully naughty.”

When it came to shooting the climactic scene, there was no actual shooting, at least not with the gun. It did not fire, but the bag of false blood under David’s jacket was punctured, leaving him covered in blood before he was actually shot. With no replacement suit available, only a brief shot of him on the floor was used. David survived.

In one interview Hargreaves speculated that her character might eventually have sorted out her mental issues and wound up doing “good work” in Switzerland, perhaps advising people who were suicidal. “Or she might be deeply, deeply alcoholic on Swiss wine, which is very moreish,” she said.

Hargreaves played Margaret Thatcher on a tour of the satirical play Anyone for Denis? in the early 1980s and in an episode of the Robin Askwith sitcom Bottle Boys (1984). And she featured as a divine being, demanding to be entertained or else, in the very silly Doctor Who story The Greatest Show in the Galaxy with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor.

She was married briefly in the 1980s and did not have children.

BRIAN PENDREIGH