Ashcroft, Dame Peggy
Ashcroft, Dame Peggy (1907-91), British actress. Among her many performances, two of the most outstanding have been in Romeo and Juliet (1935) and Hedda Gabler (1954). She was created DBE in 1956 for her services to the theater and was made a director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1968. The Ashcroft Theater in Croydon, where she was born, is named after her.