David Lean a film adaptation of "A Passage to India" (1984), from E. M. Forster's 1924 novel of colonial conflicts in British-occupied India. Entirely shot on location in the sub-continent, this became his last completed film. He rejected a draft by Santha Rama Rau, responsible for the stage adaptation and Forster's preferred screenwriter, and wrote the script himself. In addition, Lean also edited the film with the result that his three roles in the production (writer, editor, director) were given equal status in the credits. Lean recruited long-time collaborators for the cast and crew, including Maurice Jarre (who won another Academy-Award for
Peggy Ashcroft (1960), The Duchess of Malfi (1961), Emilia in "Othello" (1961) and Ranevskaya in "The Cherry Orchard", opposite Gielgud as Gaev. These were generally well reviewed, but her performance in "The Wars of the Roses" in 1963 and 1964 had the critics searching for superlatives. The production was a reshaping of Shakespeare's three "Henry VI" plays and "Richard III". Ashcroft, then aged fifty-six, played Margaret of Anjou, ageing from blithe youth to ferocious old age as the plays progressed. The critic Philip Hope-Wallace wrote of: At about this time Ashcroft's third and last marriage was beginning to fall apart. According to