Zephryne (Zeph) Gladstone, (1937-2002), actress in *Crossroads* TV series
Michael Rhodes
serial - the motel's *tart with a heart* hairdressing salon
manageress, Vera Downend - one of the soap opera's most loved
characters during its heyday in the 1970s, died 28 October, 2002.
She was born at Norwood, south London, 20 September, 1937, Zephyrine
(meaning "a soft, gentle breeze") Gladstone attended Selhurst Grammar
School, Croydon, and achieved her childhood ambition to become an
actress by training at the Central School of Speech and Drama
(1954-57).
After repertory theatre work across Britain, she appeared on the West
End stage as Miss Casewell in The Mousetrap for a year and alongside
Ian Carmichael in Devil May Care (Strand Theatre, 1963). At the
Chichester Festival Theatre, she played Dodot in Christopher Fry's A
Phoenix Too Frequent and Calpurnia in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
Gladstone also acted in television commercials, most memorably as one
of the "Omo girls" in washing-powder advertisements presented by the
disc-jockey Alan Freeman, and took the part of WPC Liz Harris in the
homely police series Dixon of Dock Green.
She then landed "pretty girl" roles in other programmes, typified by
her casting as Polly Cleavage in an episode of the sitcom Mr Aitch
(1967), created by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, and starring Harry
H. Corbett. However, most of her television guest appearances were in
dramas such as Catch Hand (1964), The Avengers (1966), The Baron
(1966, 1967), No Hiding Place (1967) and Public Eye (1971).
Gladstone also acted in the films Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), the
director Richard Attenborough's screen version of the stage musical
about the First World War, playing Cecil Parker's chauffeuse, and The
Oblong Box (1969), based on a macabre Edgar Allan Poe story and
starring Vincent Price and Christopher Lee.
In 1968, she appeared in several episodes of Crossroads as Lady
Felicity Fairchild, and later returned as Vera Downend (1971-77),
whose frequent romantic tribulations added to the dramas at the
Midlands motel until the skeleton in her cupboard, a long-lost
illegitimate son, Clive Merrow, turned up and she decided to look for
pastures new. During her time in the programme, it regularly attracted
audiences of more than 15 million.
After leaving Crossroads, Gladstone understudied Joan Plowright, as
Mme Ranevskaya, in The Cherry Orchard, at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket
(1983), but she did little more acting. Instead, she concentrated on
running antiques shops in Fulham High Street, west London, before
settling into retirement, when she enjoyed going to the theatre and
travelling the world.