Jacqueline Pearce (20 December 1943 – 3 September 2018) was a British film and television actress. She was best known for her portrayal of the principal villain Servalan in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7 (1978–1981), a performance which her obituarist in The Times wrote produced "a sexual awakening for a generation of sci-fi fans". She attended the Marist Convent School for Girls at West Byfleet,
Career
After graduating from RADA in 1963, In the same year, she flew to Yugoslavia to film a short appearance for the film Genghis Khan.
She married Henley in 1963, after they met when he directed her in a short film while they were at RADA. She divorced him in 1967 after he left her for Felicity Kendal.
Pearce remains best known for her role as Servalan, the principal villain in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7 (1978–1981). The character was originally written for one episode, but was expanded to a regular role over four series due to Pearce's popularity. Pearce had her hair cropped short when auditioning for the role, and was asked by the producers to keep it short. She influenced the production team to dress her character in feminine clothes rather than the military uniform that they had suggested. Pearce reprised the role in a 90-minute play entitled The Sevenfold Crown on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, alongside several other original Blake's 7 cast members.
She said of Servalan that "I saw her as a woman who was very damaged and driven by pain ... what drove her was not a desire to be evil but a desire to escape from pain." In a 2000 interview for The Observer, Pearce said that, given her own low self-esteem, the role had affected her personal life for years, as she had been attracted to the character's power and taken on some aspects of Servalan's personality, telling the interviewers that it had taken "the best years of my life to recover from Servalan". Roy West of the Liverpool Echo felt that "Amid a number of nebulous performances, [Pearce is] a shining star." Historian Dominic Sandbrook wrote in his Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979–1982 (2019) that "Played with scenery-chewing relish by Jacqueline Pearce, Servalan is at once immensely glamorous and thoroughly evil" and drew a parallel with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who took office in 1979, in that both were "perfectly happy to exploit [their] femininity". Vanessa Thorpe and Jakki Phillips said in The Observer in 2000 that "she was the evil genius who haunted the dreams of adolescent boys. With her pathological lust for power and low voice, early encounters with Servalan, the arch-villainess of the BBC sci-fi series Blake's Seven, are remembered as formative experiences by many who were young in the Seventies."
Other film roles include the Carry On film Don't Lose Your Head (1966), White Mischief (1987), How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), and Princess Caraboo (1994). Pearce told an interviewer in 1981 that as the film had been a commercial failure, it had not helped her career. She also acted in theatre, including Otherwise Engaged, directed by Harold Pinter. She was later associated with Doctor Who again through her appearances in The Fearmonger as Sherilyn Harper, an audio drama by Big Finish Productions, and as Admiral Mettna in the webcast story Death Comes to Time. Pearce returned to Doctor Who in 2015, this time opposite John Hurt, as a regular in the Big Finish audio series based on the adventures of the War Doctor, portraying Cardinal Ollistra, a leader of the Time Lords in the Time War. Pearce also made guest appearances in TV series such as The Avengers, Public Eye, Callan, Dead of Night, Special Branch, Spy Trap, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Pearce and her fellow Blake's 7 actor Paul Darrow (Avon) were voice actors for the 1996 videogame Gender Wars.
Her obituarist in The Daily Telegraph wrote that Pearce possessed "considerable depth and emotional range" which "was not often exploited", She described "the joy of family which hadn't proved possible with human beings".
In addition to her marriage to Drewe Henley, from 1963 until their divorce in 1967, Pearce was married a second time, which also ended in divorce.
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| 1964 || A Question of Happiness || Frances || episode "Fred" ||
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| 1965 || Giants on Saturday || girl in pub || ||
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| 1966 || The Avengers || Marianne Gray || episode "A Sense of History" ||
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| 1967 || Haunted || Jenny Bryce || episode "I Like It Here" ||
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| 1980 || Star Games || on-screen participant || ||
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Film
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes !!
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| 1965 || Changes || cast member || short ||
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| 1968
| Smile Boys, That's the Style
| Kate Wood
| Citizens Theatre
| author: John Hale, director: Michael Blakemore
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| 1975
| Otherwise Engaged
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| Queen's Theatre
| director: Harold Pinter
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| 1977
| A Midsummer Night's Dream
| Titania
| Northcott Theatre, and tour of Devon and Cornwall
| director: Geoffrey Reeves
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|-
| 1980
| Night and Day
| Ruth
| Belgrade Theatre
| author: Tom Stoppard, director: Robert Hamlin
|<!--11 to 27 September-->
|-
| 1981
| Witness for the Prosecution
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| Essex Hall, London
| author: Agatha Christie, director: Robert Henderson
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| 1981
| Wait Until Dark
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| Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke
| Author: Frederick Knott, director: Cyril Frankel
|<!--25 Mar to Apr 4-->
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| 1983
| Outlaw
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| Haymarket Studio, Leicester, and national tour
| author: Michael Abbensetts, director: Robert Gillespie
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| 1992
| Shadowlands
| Ruth
| Belgrade Theatre
| author: William Nicholson, director: Rumu Sen-Gupta
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| 1997
| When God wanted a Son
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| New End Theatre
| author: Arnold Wesker, director: Spencer Butler
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| 1999
| A Star is Torn
| Co-writer and performer
| Gilded Ballroom (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
| Co-writer and director: Spencer Butler
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| 2000
| Deception
| Marlborough Pub and Theatre
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| 2001
| Aphrodite Blues
| New End Theatre
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| 2001
| Dangerous Corner
| Garrick Theatre
| Maud Mockridge
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