Remembering actress Nicola Pagett, who was born in Cairo 78 years ago today. Most people will remember her as Elizabeth Bellamy in the ITV / PBS TV series 'Upstairs, Downstairs' (1971-77), in which she starred in 13 episodes over the first two seasons, which attracted 11 million viewers in the USA. She then went on to costar in the 1973 television movie 'Frankenstein: The True Story' and starred as the title character in the BBC / PBS 10 hour adaptation of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" in 1977. By the end of that decade, critics called her 'one of the finest actresses in the world'.
She married after wrapping 'Anna Karenina' to a fellow actor and playwright, had a daughter in 1980, and continued with television series, movies, and the London stage. Everything came to a screeching halt for her in 1995 - professionally and personally.
She was on stage at the National Theater performing in the play 'What the Butler Saw', when she had what she called ' a complete mental breakdown'. After months of erratic behavior reported by her colleagues and friends, Pagett was diagnosed with acute manic depression, which was later classified as a bipolar disorder. Her treatment was lithium. In 1996-97, she left her husband, accusing him of 'incest' and feeding their daughter heroin. She became obsessed with Prime Minister Tony Blair's press secretary, Alastair Campbell, writing him letters declaring her love and sending him a check for 6 billion pounds. She was hospitalized three times in a closed psychiatric unit. She detailed her experience and battles with bipolar depression in her memoir "Diamonds Behind My Eyes" in 1998, in which she declared herself 'fully recovered' - but she also acknowledged she would never be cast again in any project by any producer, so she 'retired' from acting and lived a light out of the spotlights.
In mid-February 2021, her daughter Eve said her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. Pagett died less than three weeks later, at the age of 75 on March 3, 2021.
