Barbara Leigh-Hunt , who appeared in Alfred Hitchcock ‘s Frenzy, dozens of other films and TV and on West End and Broadway stages, has died. She was 88. Her family said today that she died September 16 at her home in Warwickshire, England, but did not give the cause.
Leigh-Hunt was best known in the U.S. for her key role in Hitchcock’s penultimate thriller Frenzy (1972).
She played Brenda Blaney, who is brutally raped and killed by the notorious “Necktie Murderer” in London. She was the ex-wife of Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), who is suspected of the crime that actually was committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), to whom he turns unwittingly for help. “I was invited out to Pinewood Studios to speak with Hitch for about half an hour,” she told the BBC in a 2017.
“To me he was a cinematic god, but I was convinced it was a complete waste of time as I’d never even made a film. On my way home, I called my agent from the station. I was astonished to hear they’d already been on the phone to say I had the part.
” DEADLINE RELATED VIDEO: Born on December 14, 1935, in Bath, Leigh-Hunt Leigh-Hunt made her name on the London stage, winning an Olivier Award decades into her career for playing Sybil Birling in Stephen Daldry’s 1993 revival of An Inspector Calls at the National Theater. She often appeared at the Old Vic in London and with the Royal Shakespeare Company in such shows as Henry V, Measure for Measure and Love’s Labour’s Lost . She also starred as.
