A Passage to India (film) Best Picture, Best Director for Lean, and Best Actress for Judy Davis for her portrayal as Adela Quested. Peggy Ashcroft won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal as Mrs Moore, making her, at 77, the oldest actress to win the award, and Maurice Jarre won his third Academy Award for Best Original Score. Adela Quested (Judy Davis) is sailing from England to British Raj India with Mrs Moore (Peggy Ashcroft), the latter the mother of her intended bridegroom, Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers); Mrs Moore's son from her first marriage. He is the Collector and the City
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