Morag Hood
Morag Hood (12 December 1942[1] – 5 October 2002) was a Scottish actress described by many commentators as "a celebrated beauty," who featured in numerous British programmes, stage productions, and audio presentations from the 1960s up to the late 1990s.
Morag Hood was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and was a graduate of the University of Glasgow. One of her earliest jobs was as a presenter of youth programmes on Scottish Television. In April 1964 Morag and fellow presenter Paul Young interviewed the Beatles. The interview, recorded at the Scottish Television studios, Cowcaddens, Glasgow was thought to be lost for many years. The reel of 16mm film was later found in a rusting film can in South London.
She is particularly renowned for playing Natasha Rostova in the epic 1972 BBC television adaptation of War and Peace, and Frances Earnshaw in the 1970 film version of Wuthering Heights. She also played a memorably complaining and prideful Mary Musgrove in BBC's 1971 rendition of Jane Austen's famous work Persuasion. Thereafter, Morag Hood starred in numerous other British television series, including: Z-Cars, The Borderers, Bergerac, Jane Eyre, Families and Hamish Macbeth. She also starred in the controversial 1990 BBC 1 drama "A Sense of Guilt".[2]
She also appeared in an episode of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (second series, 1986, No Sex, Please, We're Brickies) as Joy Chatterley, an attractive local resident who ended up having a fling with Oz (Jimmy Nail).
In 2001 she received great acclaim for her stage performance (her final one) in A Listening Heaven by Torben Betts at the Edinburgh Royal Lyceum. She was nominated for Best Actress in that year's TMA Awards.
Morag Hood died in a London hospice on 5 October 2002, following a long battle with cancer, at the age of 59. She had two elder siblings: Liam Hood (the late Scottish TV executive) and Eila Ferguson. She lived in Fountayne Road, Stoke Newington (for a while with Martin Shaw with whom she was romantically involved) but never married and had no children.