The actor Janet Hargreaves, who has died aged 81, played Rosemary Hunter in Crossroads during the 1970s heyday of the TV serial. The character – whom Hargreaves described as a “Technicolor villain” – was labelled “unhinged” and “deranged”. From 1971 until her explosive final storyline nine years later, Rosemary became increasingly bitter – and unstable – while seeking to hold on to those closest to her.
Rosemary and her husband David (played by Ronald Allen) had run a hotel together in Bermuda. When he became general manager at the Crossroads motel, in the fictional Midlands village of King’s Oak, she joined him there, but the marriage broke down and they divorced. Although the character made a new home in Switzerland, she frequently returned to see their son Chris (played by Freddy Foote, and later Stephen Hoye) – and attempt to woo back David.
She was besotted with him and hit the bottle when he refused to give her a second chance. She plotted to stop Chris’s plans for a marriage of convenience to Diane Parker (Susan Hanson) so that he could inherit his grandmother’s wealth. Rosemary regarded Diane as “cheap” and made her life hell, but the wedding went ahead – although the marriage soon ended.
Then, in 1980, Rosemary went out with a bang – or, in the event, a whimper. Luring David away from a party celebrating his engagement to Barbara Brady (Sue Lloyd), she produced a gun. “Tell me you love me, David,” she implored him. When he repeatedly refused, she pulled the trigger. On the first take, although the gun failed to fire, Allen burst the blood bag secreted under his arm, resulting in his expensive suit being soaked in fake blood – it was only possible for a brief shot of him lying face down to be screened. David survived and Rosemary was sectioned, while the clip found its way on to the TV outtakes show It’ll be Alright on the Night.
Hargreaves was born in Reigate, Surrey, to Anthony, an army colonel, and Elizabeth (nee Tozer). A drama teacher at Penrhos college, Colwyn Bay, north Wales, inspired her to act and she trained at Rada in London.
Following experience in repertory theatre, Hargreaves appeared in the West End as Rita in The Golden Rivet (Phoenix theatre, 1964), Clare in There’s a Girl in My Soup (Globe and Comedy theatres, 1968-69) and Anne Protheroe in Murder at the Vicarage (Fortune theatre, 1978).
She also had the distinction of playing Margaret Thatcher in Anyone for Denis? on tour (1981-82) and being the first actor to have taken all three female roles in the long-running Agatha Christie whodunnit The Mousetrap (Ambassadors and St Martin’s theatres) over 40 years, understudying as Miss Casewell before going on to be cast as Mollie Ralston and Mrs Boyle.
On television, she gained soap opera experience in the magazine serial Compact’s early days, appearing between 1962 and 1963 as Clare Farrell, a secretary – alongside Allen as the editor, Ian Harmon. Hargreaves left when Clare married Mark Viccars (Gareth Davies), the fiction editor, and was later seen as Dr Cheryl Barnes in 1971 episodes of another serial, The Doctors, set in a GPs’ practice.
In between many small, one-off roles on TV, she also gave a particularly sinister performance in the 1988-89 Doctor Who story The Greatest Show in the Galaxy as the mother of a strange family – an audience of three – watching performers at the Psychic Circus on the planet Segonax, including a callous chief clown and Sylvester McCoy’s Time Lord. The mother, father and daughter turn out to be the Gods of Ragnarok, creatures with an insatiable appetite for entertainment who impose deadly consequences on those who do not meet their exacting standards.
Big-screen roles were rare, but Hargreaves had small parts in the director Ken Hughes’s musical comedy Jazz Boat (1960), The Deadly Affair (1967), with Sidney Lumet directing an adaptation of John le Carré’s novel starring James Mason, Hammer Films’ Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973), alongside Peter Cushing, and the low-budget postnatal depression drama Baby Blues (2002).
Although her final TV role was in 2005, Hargreaves continued to act in regional theatre and worked as a communications coach. She also took part in special events celebrating Crossroads’ 25th and 45th anniversaries.
Her short-lived 1984 marriage to Martin Kirby ended in divorce. She is survived by her nephew, David.
• Janet Elizabeth Hargreaves, actor, born 31 May 1937; died 4 August 2018
