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 desire to become a professional actress. Ashcroft was determined, however, and at the age of sixteen, she enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama, run by Elsie Fogerty, from whom her mother had taken lessons some years before. The school's emphasis was on the voice and elegant diction, which did not appeal to Ashcroft or to her fellow pupil Laurence Olivier. She learned more from reading "My Life in Art" by Constantin Stanislavski, the influential director of the Moscow Art Theatre. While still a student, Ashcroft made her professional stage debut at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in a