Barbara Leigh-Hunt Dies: ‘Frenzy’ & ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Star Was 88

Barbara Leigh-Hunt, a British actor whose career included parts in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Frenzy and the BBC/PBS miniseries Pride & Prejudice, has died. She was 88 years old.

Leigh-Hunt died peacefully at home in Aston Cantlow, England, on September 16, according to a funeral notice.

In Frenzy, Leigh-Hunt played Brenda Blaney, a victim of the “Necktie Murderer” serial killer, who turns out to be a friend of Brenda’s ex-husband. Brenda’s sexual assault and murder in the 1972 film is considered the most graphic sequence of any Hitchcock picture, per The Hollywood Reporter.

“I was invited out to Pinewood Studios to speak with Hitch for about half an hour,” she said in a 2017 BBC interview, recalling how she got the part. “To me, he was a cinematic god, but I was convinced it was a complete waste of time as I’d never even made a film. On my way home, I called my agent from the station. I was astonished to hear they’d already been on the phone to say I had the part.”

Decades later, in 1995, Leigh-Hunt made another memorable turn as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, aunt of Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy, the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice.

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Born on December 14, 1935, in Bath, England, Leigh-Hunt got her start on stage, graduating from Bristol Old Vic theater school in 1953 and making her theatrical debut in London just a year later. Through Old Vic, she appeared on Broadway in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1954 and Hamletand King Henry V in 1958 and 1959.

She won an Olivier Award for her performance in a National Theatre production of An Inspector Calls in 1993, and in some of her last roles, she appeared in the 2000 film Billy Elliot and the 2004 film Vanity Fair.

Leigh-Hunt was married to actor Richard Pasco — her costar in a Bristol Old Vic production of Hamlet — from 1967 until his 2014 death.