Mary Hignett

Mary Hignett (31 March 1916 – 6 July 1980) was a British actress best known for her role as Edna Hall in the television series All Creatures Great and Small.

In All Creatures, she played the role of the cook and housekeeper in the first three series, which ran from 1978 to 1980. Other credits include the Hammer film Prehistoric Women (1967), the horror movie The Corpse (1971), and the 1972 Hammer Horror film Demons of the Mind (in which fellow All Creatures actor Robert Hardy played the role of Zorn).

Personal life

Hignett was born in Madras, India, to Horace Arthur Du Cane Hignett (c. 1874–1923) and Ellen Kate Allen,^[1] who died during Mary's birth.^[2] Her father was an Oxford University law graduate who was born in Ringway, Cheshire. He became a Captain in the British Army in 1917.^[3] He died in September 1923, a month into the second Rampa Rebellion, when his daughter was seven years old.^[4]

Hignett was married to the actor Michael Brennan (1912–1982). They had one child, daughter Patricia Mary O'Leary (1943–2013).^[5]

Hignett died in 1980, aged 64, shortly after the third series of All Creatures was filmed. Scheduled to have a hip replacement, she was convinced by her doctors to have a riskier double hip replacement rather than the single. This is believed to have led to her death.^[6] She is buried in Chichester Crematorium and Garden of Remembrance, Chichester, England. Her All Creatures co-stars Robert Hardy, Christopher Timothy and Carol Drinkwater attended the funeral. The news of her passing was written into the script of the 1983 Christmas Special, and her honour was toasted by the four remaining central characters.^[7] Her husband was buried alongside her after his death two years later at the age of 69.

"I remember there was an episode in the third series where Mary, in real life, was very ill and in a lot of pain," recalled Carol Drinkwater, who played the first Helen Herriot in the series. "It was before her hip operations, the operations which finally killed her. We had a director — I can't remember who it was — who hauled us in every day to rehearsals in Acton whether we were needed or not. Mary had to come from Brighton or Eastbourne — she lived down on the south coast — and she could hardly walk. Mary must have said, 'I'm not in any of the scenes tomorrow – do you mind if I don't come in?' And this director said he wanted her there. He could see she was in pain, but she struggled in the next day, but when she said she really would need the next day off, the director said, 'No, I want all of you here all of the time, because it creates a certain bonding.' Being the Young Turk that I was, I got absolutely furious with this director, saying he had no right to make her do this, and in the end he did let her have the day off. It was an example of how tightly knit we were. If someone came in and tried to change things, one of us, one way or another — usually Robert Hardy — would hold it together and make sure it wasn't destroyed."^[6]

"[Mary] was a strict Catholic and had quite strict ethics about things," remembered Christopher Timothy. "I really liked working with her and I particularly liked [the episode] "Big Steps and Little 'Uns", when we go to war. I have a very brief goodbye with Mary, at the bottom of the stairs — because Carol stays upstairs to wave me off — and Mary is a bit tearful and I'm doing my best not to be tearful."^[6] This was Hignett's final scene before her death.

Partial filmography

• Prehistoric Women (1967) - Mrs. Hammond
• The Corpse (1971) - Servant
• Demons of the Mind (1972) - Matronly Woman

References

External links

• Mary Hignett on IMDb
• Mary Hignett at Find a Grave