Tragedy strikes Downton’s Dame Penelope

DAME Penelope Wilton, who stars in the forthcoming film Downton Abbey: A New Era, has been left ‘heartbroken’ after the death of her beloved sister Rosemary.

‘It’s very difficult at the moment,’ says the actress, 75, who plays Maggie Smith’s sparring partner Isobel Crawley in the hit costume drama. ‘My elder sister Rosemary died two months ago. She was 80. She’d had a lot of falls, caught Covid, and went into hospital. She came out, but had got a chest infection, so went back in and died. We are heartbroken.’

Curiously, Dame Penelope and her surviving sister, Lindy, were both married to the same man, the late actor Daniel Massey.

Lindy exchanged vows with Massey two years after he and the actress were divorced.

‘It was odd to begin with but I got used to it,’ Wilton later remarked.