Peggy Ashcroft Days", Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine" and Pinter's "Family Voices". Her RSC roles were Lidya in Aleksei Arbuzov's "Old World" (1976), and her final stage part was the Countess in "All's Well That Ends Well", which she played at Stratford in 1981 and in London in 1982. In the years after her last stage appearance Ashcroft made occasional, but highly successful, television and film appearances. For "The Jewel in the Crown" she won a BAFTA award for best actress in 1984, and for her portrayal of Mrs Moore in David Lean's 1985 film "A Passage to India" she won
Peggy Ashcroft was not a success, but Ashcroft was credited with courage for taking the role on. In 1958, Peter Hall, who had been appointed to run the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, approached Ashcroft with his plans for a permanent company, with bases in Stratford and London, and a regular, salaried company, presenting a mixture of classical and new plays. Ashcroft immediately agreed to join him, and her lead was, in Hall's view, key to the success of the new Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). In the RSC's first seasons Ashcroft played Katharina in "The Taming of the Shrew", Paulina in "The Winter's Tale"